AUGUST 2015 VISA BULLETIN

The Department of State has just released the August 2015 Visa Bulletin. This is the eleventh Visa Bulletin of the 2015 Fiscal Year.  

The bizarre retrogression of the Philippines EB-3 continues.  Although the July Visa Bulletin showed that Philippine EB-3 was unavailable, this month shows a date: June 1, 2004.  This means that there are a few available visas for this fiscal year.  Please read our blog post from May 19 for deeper analysis on the state of the Philippine EB-3.

All Other EB-3 is essentially current, with a date of July 15, 2015.  This is great news for all EB-3s, other than Philippine, China, and India.

India EB-2 remained at October 1, 2008. On the other hand, India EB-3 leapt ahead.  It is now at June 2004.  

China EB-2 improved another two and a half months to December 15, 2013 and EB-3 remained at September 1, 2011.  The story was much different for China EB-3, which retrogressed back to 2004.  Just a few months ago, China EB-3 had actually progressed further than EB-2.  There is now a nearly ten year gap between these two categories.

Employment- Based	All Other	CHINA - mainland born	INDIA	MEXICO	PHILIPPINES
1st	C	C	C	C	C
2nd	C	15DEC13	1OCT08	C	C
3rd	15JUL15	01JUN04	01JUN04	15JUL15	01JUN2004

The Visa Bulletin also included this notice:

D. CHINA-MAINLAND BORN EMPLOYMENT THIRD, AND THIRD OTHER WORKER VISA AVAILABILITY There was an extremely large increase in applicant demand reported for consideration in the determination of the August cut-off dates. Therefore, it has been necessary to retrogress the Employment Third, and Third Other Worker cut-off dates to hold number use within the FY-2015 annual limit. Every effort will be made to return those categories to the previously announced July cut-off dates as quickly as possible under the FY-2016 annual limits. Those limits will take effect October 1, 2015.