State Department "DV-2025 Program: The online registration period for the DV-2025 Program begins on Wednesday, October 4, 2023, at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4) and concludes on...
USCIS, Sept. 27, 2023 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is updating policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual regarding maximum validity periods for Employment Authorization Documents...
This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 09/29/2023 "Eligible citizens, nationals, and passport holders from designated Visa Waiver Program countries may apply for admission...
Pesikan v. Atty. Gen. "Petitioner Srecko Pesikan argues that the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) erred in concluding that his 2018 Pennsylvania conviction for driving under the...
USCIS, Sept. 25, 2023 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that it is exempting the biometric services fee for Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant...
Visa Bulletin for September 2023
See Notes E and F:
E. AVAILABILITY OF EMPLOYMENT-BASED VISAS DURING SEPTEMBER
Employment-based number use by both USCIS and Department of State has been steady during the fiscal year. As a result, most employment-based preference category limits and/or the overall employment-based preference limit for FY 2023 are expected to be reached during September. If at any time an annual limit were reached, it would be necessary to immediately make the preference category “unavailable”, and no further requests for numbers would be honored.
F. 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 the 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. Citizen 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 reasonable estimates of the anticipated amount of visa numbers to be available under the annual limits, in accordance with Section 203(g) of the INA. On August 2nd, USCIS provided the required data to the VO.
The Department of State has determined the Family and Employment preference numerical limits for FY-2023 in accordance with the terms of Section 201 of the INA. These numerical limitations for FY-2023 are as follows:
Worldwide Family-Sponsored preference limit: 226,000Worldwide Employment-Based preference limit: 197,091
Under INA Section 202(a), the per-country limit is fixed at 7% of the family and employment annual limits. For FY-2023 the per-country limit is 29,616. The dependent area annual limit is 2%, or 8,462.