June 2016 Visa Bulletin – The Big Retrogression and the “Trump Effect”

May 9 2016 – The June 2016 Visa Bulletin is a ‘horror’ situation for many Indians who were hoping that there will be some movement forward on the June 2016 Visa Bulletin. Not only we did not see an EB India movement forward, we saw a colossal retrogression. Some people have qualified it as the “Trump Effect”. Looking back at all the problems Indian students and Indian immigrant workers are facing, we can only concur that there is some sort of Trump Effect affecting the thousands of employment based categories. As you can see in the Visa Bulletin June 2016 India EB2 went back to October 2004 which is a retrogression which we have not seen for years. The only good news is that the acceptance dates have not retrogressed. There are two possibilities now:

  1. The retrogression will either stay the same or be worse in the next few months but
  2. After ‘a big retrogression’, we often see a big move forward in the next few months.

Let us hope it is the latter and we see something moving forward for India or we might see a huge ‘brain drain’ all over the United States.

“RETROGRESSION OF SEVERAL FAMILY-SPONSORED AND EMPLOYMENT-BASED FINAL ACTION DATES FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE

FAMILY-SPONSORED:

CHINA F4:

The increased level of applicant demand being received has necessitated retrogression of the June final action date, in an effort to hold number use within the overall China Family-sponsored annual limit. At this time, it is not possible to predict whether this date will advance prior to the end of the fiscal year.

INDIA F4:

The increased level of applicant demand being received has necessitated retrogression of the June final action date, in an effort to hold number use within the overall India Family-sponsored annual limit. This date is not expected to advance prior to the end of the fiscal year.

EMPLOYMENT-BASED:

INDIA E2:

During the past two months, there have been extremely high levels of Employment-based demand for adjustment of status cases filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This has necessitated retrogression of the Second preference final action date for the month of June in an effort to hold number use within the FY-2016 annual limit. This date is expected to advance slowly during the last three months of the fiscal year, at a pace consistent with that of the India Employment-based Third preference date.

CHINA E2 and E3:

During the past two months, there have been extremely high levels of Employment-based demand for adjustment of status cases filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This has necessitated retrogression of both the Second and Third preference final action dates for the month of June in an effort to hold number use within those FY-2016 annual limits. Neither of these dates is expected to advance prior to the end of the fiscal year.

Item D of the May Visa Bulletin advised readers that such corrective action might be necessary to control future number use during the coming months. Every effort will be made to return the retrogressed dates to those listed in the May 2016 Visa Bulletin as quickly as possible, once the FY-2017 annual limits take effect October 1, 2016. Speculation on how quickly, or when, a full recovery might occur might not be possible until late summer.”

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