January Visa Bulletin Released

The January 2014 Visa Bulletin was recently released by USCIS last week.   Perhaps the most notable movement was for the worldwide EB-3 and China and Mexico EB3 numbers.  In all three of those cases, the priority date moved up almost 1 year to April 1, 2012.  The Philippines moved forward only one month in this category to February 15, 2007 and India did not move at all, staying at September 1, 2003.

For EB2 movement, the worldwide, Mexico and Philippines numbers stayed current.  China moved forward by one month to December 8. 2008 and India again stayed at the same date, November 15, 2004.   As stated in our previous posts, chances are India will not see any movement until later in the fiscal year.

In terms of family based visas, the Family Preference 1 (Unmarried Sons and Daughters of US Citizens) saw a little movement to December 8, 2006 for Worldwide numbers, China and India and the Family Preference 2A (Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents) stayed at September 8 , 2013 for all areas except Mexico which is still at September 1, 2013.  Likewise the Family Preference 2B (Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Permanent Residents) also stayed the same at June 1, 2006 for All areas except Mexico and the Philippines, both which are extremely backlogged in this area.  Family Preference 3 (Married Sons and Daughters of US Citizens) and Family Preference 4 (Brothers and Sisters of US Citizens) both moved forward about 1 month to April 15, 2003 and October 1, 2001 respectively (except for Mexico and the Philippines, both of which are extremely backlogged in this area).

For those interested, the visa bulletin is released every month by the Department of State and is available at this page.

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