August 2013 Visa Bulletin: EB2-India and F2A Advance Significantly

August 2013 Visa Bulletin was released today by the Department of State. EB2-India finally started moving, advancing more than three years to 2008-01-01. Family-sponsored F2A category abruptly became “Current” for all countries. EB-3 categories, however, remained largely unchanged after enjoying significant forward movement over the past few months.

DOS offered an explanation:

FAMILY-sponsored: F2A: This category has become “Current” for August, and is expected to remain so for the next several months. This action has been taken in an effort to generate an increased level of demand. Despite the fact that there are large amounts of registered F2A demand, currently there are not enough applicants who are actively pursuing final action on their case to fully utilize all of the available numbers.

EMPLOYMENT-based: India Second: This cut-off date has been advanced in an effort to fully utilize the numbers available under the overall Employment Second preference annual limit. It is expected that such movement will generate a significant amount of new India demand during the coming months.

These changes for the Family F2A, and India Employment Second preference categories reflect actions which have been taken based on current applicant demand patterns. Readers should expect that some type of “corrective” action will be required at some point during FY-2014 in an effort to maintain number use within the applicable annual limits. Such action would involve the establishment and retrogression of such cut-off dates, and could occur at any time. – DOS

For India EB2, here is what one-year’s misery looks like: