Chats with Charlie is a monthly series recently launched by the State Department where Charlie Oppenheim, Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control & Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State, answers frequently asked questions regarding each month’s Visa Bulletin. These chats are essential since they give us a glimpse of what to expect in the upcoming visa bulletin. As we are quickly approaching the end of the fiscal year, the insights Mr. Oppenheim provides are key.

The fiscal year 2021 and the upcoming fiscal year 2022 were greatly affected by the global pandemic. We saw ​unprecedented numbers of visas available for employment-based preference categories in the fiscal year 2021. As Charlie emphasized during his talk, however, just having visas available does not give us a full picture. USCIS would need to use though visa by adjudicating cases. However, they are restricted by the pandemic as well as available resources. Therefore, although unprecedented movement was seen in Fiscal Year 2021, not all the visas available would have been used. Mr. Oppenheim states there have been 150,000 unused Family-Based preference visas and Employment-Based unused visas he estimates are 100,000. These unused visas will be rolled over to Fiscal Year 2022. Then, we can expect more visas to be available both in the family-based and employment-based preference groups starting October 1, 2021.

Mr. Oppenheim does not expect any drastic movement in the Final Action Date for Employment-Based preference categories for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2022. Although he acknowledges that it is hard to predict the potential movement of any of the Employment-Based Final Action Dates until it is clear what the Fiscal Year 2022 Employment-Based annual limit is. This process is to give a chance for the already pending applications to be processed. This is great news for those Applicants whose case is already pending awaiting adjudication by USCIS.

Regarding India, for Employment-Based preference categories in EB-2 and EB-3, Mr. Oppenheim predicts the Application Filing Date in October 2021 will closely reflect September 2021 Visa Bulletin Application Filing Date. This is positive news, although more EB-2 to EB-3 downgrade Employment-Based preference categories cases are processed by USCIS, the chance of retrogression in both categories are is expected until August or September of 2022.

For Family-Based preference categories worldwide, Mr. Oppenheim predicts no change between what we see in the September 2021 Visa Bulletin and what we will see in the first three to six months of the fiscal year 2022.  We expected this as the pandemic limits the process of these cases abroad at the consulate.

ILBSG will continue to monitor and report predictions and movements related to the monthly visa bulletin. If you have any questions regarding your priority date, please reach out to an ILBSG attorney today.

Chats with Charlie immigration September Visa Bulletin