US Department of State Publishes March 2019 Visa Bulletin
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Pasricha & Patel Takeaways:
U.S. Department of State’s March 2019 visa bulletin continues to show meaningful movements in the employment-based preference categories. In particular, the employment-based 3rd visa preference category numbers for Indian nationals continues to move faster than the 2nd visa preference category numbers. And the visa preference category for EB-1 continues to move at slow pace across all nationalities as demand for those visa numbers continue to be quite vibrant.
With these projections, the concern remains that because of the EB-3 visa numbers’ movements, this will result in an increase in demand for EB-3 visa numbers, particularly by Indian nationals who may wish to forego pursuing the EB-2 visa category altogether. But by increasing the EB-3 visa numbers’ demand, the chances that this trend will end up hurting the EB-3 visa category’s visa number movement altogether. And that would mean the Department of State will eventually have to hold the EB-3 visa numbers and slow down its movement, in order to avoid it becoming ‘unavailable’ in the coming months.
It should also be noted that even though the EB-5 investor visa preference category shows ‘unavailable’, this is because the visa bulletin was published before the necessary legislative action extending this visa category for fiscal year 2019 went into effect on February 16, 2019. So, as of now, the final action date for EB-5 should immediately become ‘current’ for March and for all countries, except for El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (which are subject to a March 1, 2016 final action date), and for Mexico (which is subject to January 1, 2018 final action date).
We suggest that readers keep an eye out for any updates on this issue via our website. And should our readers have any further questions about the various visa preference categories, please do not hesitate to contact our office to schedule a consultation to discuss this matter further.