Visa Lawyer Blog
This week I am attending the National American Immigration Lawyers Association Conference in Vancouver,BC. The setting is perfect as 11,000 immigration lawyers gather to discuss the most pressing issues in immigration law today.
I attended the open forum where by Government Officials from Immigration and Department of Labor share views and answer questions from the lawyers. Gov Officials said that the U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin for July 2008 stated that all employment-based, third preference (EB3) visa numbers will be used by the end of June 2008. There are several causes of this development according to the panel experts today, including joint efforts by DOS and the USCIS to utilize all available visa numbers by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2008.
One important change that appears to be contributing to the usage of visa numbers is the February 2008 Michael Aytes (he was there today acting very cheerful and willing to answer many questions) memorandum allowing for approval of Application for Adjustment of Status (I-485) cases awaiting clearance through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s National Name Check Program (NNCP).
The USCIS has approved enough EB3 cases to reach its annual limit for all countries. As a result, no EB3 Adjustment of Status applications may be approved until fiscal year FY2009, which begins October 1, 2008. I will keep you posted as we get more updates during the conference.