Backlogs, high demand create a mess.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Chinese EB-3 permanent residency applicants has suddenly seen their priority dates retrogress by as much as six years.
In their visa bulletin for June 2015, the US Department of State’s Bureau for Consular Affairs announced that the maximum of EB-3 visas to be given out for the entire year is already near being reached. In order to keep up with the dramatic influx of EB-3 holders, the cutoff date for China, Worldwide, and Mexico categories is now being pushed back to October 1, 2006.
This is the first time that such a drastic step has been taken by the US government, with regards to the EB-3 visa. The visa is used for US-based employment for skilled workers, professionals and “other workers,” and is typically used as a means to gain permanent residency faster than H-1B and other, more typical visas.
However, because of that, demand is high, with backlogs for certain countries lasting as much as nine years, and even longer for high-concentration countries like China and India.
Therefore, while no such measure has been announced, it is feasible that Indian EB-3 holders could see their cutoff dates pushed back, too. For the fiscal year 2012, the Department of State determined that only 144,951 EB-3 visas would be given out, and that each country would be given a limit of 7% of the worldwide cap, which equaled roughly 10,146.
For India, the cutoff date remains October 15, 2003, and has not been changed alongside China’s. But that does not mean that it can’t ever change if the US government wants it to.