Visa Bulletin For September 2014

Visa Bulletin For September 2014

D. VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE COMING MONTHS

INDIA Employment-based Second Preference: The use of potentially "otherwise unused" Employment numbers prescribed by Section 202(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) has allowed the India Employment Second preference cut-off date to advance very rapidly in recent months. Continued forward movement of this cut-off date during the upcoming months cannot be guaranteed, however, and no assumptions should be made until the dates are formally announced. Once there is a significant increase in India Employment Second preference demand it will be necessary to retrogress the cut-off date, possibly as early as November, to hold number use within the fiscal year 2015 annual limit.

E. DETERMINATION OF THE NUMERICAL LIMITS ON IMMIGRANTS
REQUIRED UNDER THE TERMS OF THE IMMIGRATION AND
NATIONALITY ACT (INA)

The State Department is required to make a determination of the worldwide numerical limitations, as outlined in Section 201(c) and (d) of the INA, on an annual basis. These calculations are based in part on data provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding the number of immediate relative adjustments in the preceding year and the number of aliens paroled into the United States under Section 212(d)(5) in the second preceding year. Without this information, it is impossible to make an official determination of the annual limits. To avoid delays in processing while waiting for the USCIS data, the Visa Office (VO) bases allocations on the minimum annual limits outlined in Section 201 of the INA. On July 24th, USCIS provided the required data to VO.

The Department of State has determined the Family and Employment preference numerical limits for FY-2014 in accordance with the terms of Section 201 of the INA. These numerical limitations for FY-2014 are as follows:

Worldwide Family-Sponsored preference limit: 226,000
Worldwide Employment-Based preference limit: 150,241

Under INA Section 202(A), the per-country limit is fixed at 7% of the family and employment annual limits. For FY-2014 the per-country limit is 26,337. The dependent area annual limit is 2%, or 7,525.