The Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for May 2009 announces unavailability for the EB3 category for all countries. The EB3 category will remain "unavailable" until October 2009 when the new fiscal year begins. DOS has indicated that demand from USCIS for adjustment of status cases with priority dates that were significantly earlier than the established cut-off dates resulted in the annual limits being reached.

In the employment-based second preference category (EB2), all countries other than India and China remain current. EB2 India and China will not move this month. EB2 India will remain at February 15, 2004 and EB2 China at February 15, 2005. The employment-based first preference (EB1) remains current for all countries.

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

For general information on visa retrogression, please see our FAQ on this subject. 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 nationality-specific charts of quota movement for the past decade.

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