OCTOBER 2019 VISA BULLETIN: ANALYSIS

The Department of State has just issued the October 2019 Visa Bulletin. This is the first Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2020. This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin. 

October 2019 Visa Bulletin

Table A: Final Action Dates -- Applications with these dates may be approved for their Green Card (Permanent Residency card) or Immigrant Visa appointment.

Employment- based	All Other	CHINA	INDIA	PHILIPPINES
1st	22APR18	01NOV16	01JAN15	22APR18
2nd	C	01JAN15	12MAY09	C
3rd	C	01NOV15	01JAN09	15OCT17

Table B: Dates for Filing -- The DOS may work on applications with these dates. But the Visa cannot be approved until the date is current per Table A.

Employment- based	All Other	CHINA	INDIA	PHILIPPINES
1st	01JUL19	01SEP17	15MAR17	01JUL19
2nd	C	01AUG16	01JUL09	C
3rd	C	01MAR17	01FEB10	C

MU Law Analysis (all references are to Table A unless noted)

All Other: Although All Other EB-1 has a slight retrogression, the EB-2 and EB-3 categories remained current and are expected to remain current for the foreseeable future.

China: The EB-2 and EB-3 inverted again, as EB-3 has a favorable priority date than EB-2.  Over the course of FY2020 we expect EB-3 to catch up to EB-2 and the two categories to stay roughly equal.

India: As with China, the EB-2 and EB-3 dates have inverted.  We expect very little progress in either category, although EB-2 may move slightly quicker than EB-3 in future months.

Philippines: We find the implementation of the 15OCT17 priority date puzzling.  This is almost surely a too conservative projection by DOS.  MU expects that this date will rapidly move in the coming months, and could return to current in early 2020.