EB2 India Green Card Prediction – Oct 2023 Bulletin and Beyond
EB2 and EB3 may take 8-10 yrs to reach Dec 2014 again as each will get about 3k GC per year now. No relief unless law is changed.
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Will EB2 India reach Dec 2014 in the Oct 2023-Sep 2024 bulletin?
The chances of EB2 India reaching 2014 are very low. We expect the EB2 to move at a very low pace now.
As per data shared by USCIS in Oct 2022, they had about 35k EB2 and about 25k EB3 pending with no duplicates. This means that about 60k applications are pending in total.
Now, if each EB2 and EB3 get about 3k per year, then by linear maths, it will take about 10 years for both to reach Dec 2014 again.
The COVID spillover is not available now and whosoever couldn’t get the green card, has missed the bus.
Unless any lawsuit results change the retrogression policy, skilled Indians will get no relief.
AOS Retrogression Lawsuits
AOS retrogression lawsuits have not yielded any results yet. All of the cases that were filed by Brad Banias were individual cases. Some of them have even been denied and their appeals are still pending.
Normally, this kind of cases where the government entity is challenged with a major change in their old practices do require time and most judges are not ready to take that plunge.
These individual lawsuits have been filed with the claim that USCIS can still approve their pending i485 even if the visa bulletin has been retrogressed.
As per the law and Brad’s arguments, Congress specifically allowed USCIS to do so but they have intentionally not followed this policy just because it is too complex and difficult for them to follow it.
You can listen to the above verbal argument in the US circuit court where the judges were also trying to question USCIS with respect to why the law has not been implemented correctly.
It seems that USCIS has been waiting cautiously for the results of AOS lawsuits that are currently in progress for “wrong interpretation of the law” and allegedly unlawful retrogression. Why would they move the dates so far back in time otherwise?
Predictions for 2024
Stay positive and hope for the best.
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You can also estimate dates based on your own priority date.
If you have already filed your i485 but have not submitted the medicals, we strongly recommend interfiling the i693 form and improving your chances of getting a Green card earlier than others in the queue.
This app uses publicly available i140 data from USCIS and then mimics the per-month visa allocation based on various factors.
The employment spillovers happen in this order:
- EB4 and EB5 extra green cards are given to EB1.
- EB1’s unused GC numbers are given to EB2 ROW (The rest of the world).
- EB2’s ROW is shared horizontally with backlogged countries like India and China. The most backlogged country gets the most GCs as per the best understanding.
- EB3 ROW is supposed to get unused GC from EB2 which is almost impossible since EB2 India and China have huge backlogs.
- EB3 does not spill over to anyone as per our understanding.
In a nutshell, this is the funnel for spillovers within employment-based categories:
- Unused EB4+EB5 ->
- EB1 ROW ->
- Unused EB1 ->
- EB2 ROW ->
- EB2 Backlogged (most backlogged first) ->
- EB3 ROW ->
- EB3 Backlogged (most backlogged first)
If you want to understand how this whole setup works, head over to the HappySchools blog which has explained spillover sharing details within EB categories in a really simple way.
Estimate My Green Card Date
You can estimate your own green card date based on the same AI algorithm which we use for predicting visa bulletins.
Open App in new Window
- Visit the My Green Card Estimate App here.
- Enter your country of birth and employment-based GC category. You can leave the options as default.
- Click the ‘Estimate My GC Date‘ button and see the visa bulletin that may get you the Green card.
This is what the estimated values look like.
This will help you make a decision with respect to filing EB2 to EB3 downgrade and collecting documents for filing i485 if you have a good chance of getting current in the near future.
You should be ready to file I-485 documents if the dates move forward quickly as the window might not stay open for long.
How to Get a Green Card Fast?
Unless the US Immigration law is changed, to remove country-based GC limits with a law like S386, there is no real possibility of any Indian joining the EB2 Green card queue, to get a Green card in his/her lifetime.
#1 US Citizen Child Sponsor
To circumvent this 150-year wait, your Adult US citizen child can sponsor you once he/she turns 21.
This will give you a Green card immediately as there is neither any yearly limit nor any priority date waiting for immediate relatives of US citizens.
#2 EB5 Filing
If you have the money, you should file the green card using the EB5 investor route.
