On February 13, 2007, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) released the March 2007 Visa Bulletin. There were no changes in the priority date for any employment-based immigrant visa categories from the prior month. EB-1 remains current for all countries. EB-2 is current for all countries other than India and China. For individuals born in India, the EB-2 priority date is unchanged at January 8, 2003. For individuals born in China, the EB-2 priority date remains April 22, 2005.

In the EB-3 category, the priority date remains August 1, 2002 for China-born and Philippine-born individuals as well as for the world-wide applicants (individuals born in all countries other than India, China, Mexico, or the Philippines). The EB-3 priority date for India-born individuals is May 8, 2001. The EB-3 cutoff date for persons born in Mexico is unchanged at May 15, 2001.

It is important to note that the country of "chargeability" is not the same as citizenship. Generally, DOS looks at the country of birth in determining whether a person is chargeable to a given country. As a result, persons who become citizens of other countries (i.e., Indians who become Canadian citizens) are still considered chargeable to their birth country for immigrant visa purposes.

DOS states in the Bulletin that there will be little if any forward movement of the EB-3 numbers in the near future, due to backlog reduction efforts at both the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). DOS also notes that the backlog reduction "could easily cause a retrogression of the current Employment Third preference cut-off dates should that demand begin to materialize at CIS offices during the spring and summer months."
For more information on the Visa Bulletin and country quota movements, including information about movement in the Family-Based Quotas, please see our ( DOS Visa Bulletin and Quota Movement page) which includes detailed charts of quota movement for the past decade.

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