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October Visa Bulletin Reflects Administration’s Visa Modernization Efforts; Apply to Only Some Immigrant Visa Applicants

By immigrationprof

The Department of State has published the October 2015 visa bulletin.  Unlike past visa bulletins, this month’s chart reflects the Administration’s revised system for publishing dates that are intended to advise family- and employment-based visa applicants on the timing of submitting their Forms I-485 (Applications to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status).  Under the old system, the visa bulletin contained only one set of dates, which would correspond to applicants’ priority dates, and indicate when an applicant with an approved family or employment petition could take the next step in the immigration process through the filing of the Form I-485.  As USCIS explains on its website, under the new system, the visa bulletin contains two dates:  (1) an “Application Final Action Date,” which functions similarly to the dates published on previous visa bulletins, and reflect when the agency can issue visas; and, (2) a “Date for Filing Applications,” which indicates when applicants may file their Forms I-485 (once their priority dates are eligible). 

Consistent with immigration law’s reputation as a confusing and technical area of law, applicants for adjustment of status (i.e., those filing from within the U.S.) appear to remain more or less bound by the old system of priority dates, as USCIS has indicated that the “Application Final Action Dates chart must be used to determine when to file an adjustment of status application with USCIS” (emphasis added).  However, in some circumstances – when more immigrant visas are available for a given category – then the Dates for Filing Applicants chart may still be used for certain adjustment of status applicants. 

The visa bulletin changes have taken place in connection with the visa modernization dimensions (published in a July 2015 White House Report) of President Obama’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions, announced in November 2014. The best known aspect of the Administration’s executive immigration reforms is Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, currently the subject of litigation in the federal courts.

–        JKoh