Department of State November 2015 Visa Bulletin Summary

The Department of State released the November 2015 Visa Bulletin today.  D&S provides a Monthly Summary of the family and employment based priority dates.  This month, the Filing dates for China and India remained unchanged for both the EB-2 and EB-3 preference categories. The Final Action dates for EB-2 India progressed a little over a year to August 1, 2006, and EB-3 India progressed just under one month to April 1, 2004. EB-2 China had a modest progression of one month to February 1, 2012 and EB-3 China progressed approximately 2.5 months to January 1, 2012.  Finally, the EB-5 China Filing date held steady at May 1, 2015 and the Final Action date progressed a little over one month to November 22, 2013.

The release of the November 2015 Visa Bulletin is further confirmation that the original October 2015 Visa Bulletin (originally released on September 9, 2015) which was superseded by an updated version (released on September 25, 2015) will not be restored at this time, despite the pending federal class action lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State. While the underlying lawsuit remains pending, earlier this week the U.S. District court denied the plaintiff's request for a temporary restraining order which would have forced the government to revert to the original version of the October 2015 Visa Bulletin. 

D&S will continue to monitor this and post updates as they become available.