Employment Visas “Current” for July

In a surprise development, the release yesterday of the Department of State’s July 2007 Visa Bulletin shows that visas will be Current for all employment based preference categories, except “Other Workers” beginning July 1, 2007. The “Other Worker” category is ‘Unavailable”, meaning that no adjustment of status application can be filed or immigrant visa issued at a consulate in this category regardless of how early the priority date. For all other employment based categories adjustment of status applications can be filed and consular immigrant visas can be issued for cases already processed regardless of priority date. Just two months ago the 3rd employment preference category showed backlogs of 3 to 6 years, and backlogs for 2nd preference for India and China were 2 to 4 years, so this is an unexpected surge forward. It is not known whether visas will remain current in August or retrogress once more. A full copy of the monthly Visa Bulletin can be found at http://travel.state.gov under “Visas”, “Frequently Requested Visa Information”.

It is anticipated that there will be a high volume of I-485 adjustment of status filings prior to July 31st because of the current priority dates and because of the substantial increases in the CIS filing fees effective July 30th.