The Department of State has released the October 2022 Visa Bulletin. D&S provides a Monthly Summary of the employment-based priority dates. In October, USCIS will be accepting adjustment of status applications based on the Dates for Filing Chart, rather than the Final Action Dates Chart.
With respect to Final Action Dates, all EB-1 categories will remain current for all preference categories. With the exception of China and India, all other EB-2 countries of chargeability will remain current. Notably, EB-2 India’s Final Action Date has retrogressed more than 2 years to April 1, 2012. DOS reported that rapid forward movements of the EB-2 India Final Action and Date for Filing Application dates were implemented in FY2022 in order to fill the maximum number of visas available, which increased applicant demand and resulted in the large retrogression in India EB-2. In contrast, EB-2 China’s Final Action Date advanced by 2 months to July 8, 2019.
All EB-3 categories except India and China will remain current. EB-3 China’s Final Action Date advanced to July 15, 2018, while EB-3 India’s Final Action Date advanced to July 1, 2012. Furthermore, the Final Action date for the EB-5 China Unreserved categories retrogressed by nine months, to March 22, 2015, and a Final Action cut-off date of November 8, 2019 will be imposed on the previously current EB-5 Unreserved category for India. EB-5 Final Action dates will remain current for all other countries.
With respect to Application Filing Dates, EB-2 China’s Date for Filing advanced by 2 months to July 8, 2019 and EB-3 China’s Date for Filing advanced by nearly 2 months to July 15, 2018. It appears that USCIS has used nearly all available employment-based immigrant visas for this fiscal year. The State Department is expected to make an official announcement in the coming days.