December 2024 Visa Bulletin: Slight Movement Forward for India

The Department of State has just issued the December 2024 Visa Bulletin. This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin.

Visa Bulletin

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

Table B: Dates for Filing

The USCIS will use the Table B Dates for Filing chart for I-485 employment-based filings in December 2024. See: USCIS Visa Bulletin Dates

MU Law Analysis

EB-1, EB-2, EB-3: The Visa Bulletin for categories EB-2 India and EB-3 India moved forward 2 weeks and 1 week, respectively, in the Final Action Dates Chart. All other categories have not changed.

The January 2025 Visa Bulletin is expected to progress forward to begin the new fiscal quarter. In previous years, the January Visa Bulletin has progressed several months in employment-based categories. 

USCIS DATA ON SCHEDULE A NURSES 2018-2022

In April 2022, MU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, requesting a complete dataset of all I-140 registered nurse immigrant petitions approved between Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 – Fiscal Year 2022.  The USCIS finally responded, producing a 443 page list of I-140 immigrant petitions approved between FY 2018 – FY 2022 for registered nurses. MU has summarized the data provided by the USCIS below:

 

	FY 2018	FY 2019	FY 2020	FY2021	FY 2022
Total # of Approved RN I-140s	3905	5695	7484	7489	12095

 

As indicated by the data produced by the USCIS, there has been a steady increase in the number of approved I-140 immigrant petitions for registered nurses, with a notable jump in FY 2022, reflecting a critical need among U.S. employers for foreign national registered nurses. The demand among U.S. employers, coupled with a growing nursing workforce shortage should persuade Congress to embrace legislation, such as the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, which seeks to address the nation’s shortage of nurses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In summary, the data produced by USCIS not only illustrates the urgent demand for foreign national registered nurses but also reinforces the need for legislative measures to address this critical shortage in healthcare.