It is a never-ending cycle.
To most intending US immigrants — be it a family-based visa applicant or an employment-based visa hopeful — every month of waiting rolls by adventitiously like the proverbial dice in a game of craps.
Or to quote from the jejune musings of Mr. Forrest Gump, each month that goes by is “like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
Yes, it seems that the venerated monthly Visa Bulletin, the US State Department’s Holy Grail of visa availability information, has gradually metamorphosed into a proverbial box of assorted Gump chocolates, if not a Vegas craps table, for its wildly erratic visa availability movements.
As explained in a previous piece, the US State Department issues a Visa Bulletin every month that summarizes the availability of immigrant visas and contains a list of monthly cut-off dates for visa issuance within the various immigrant visa categories.
The monthly cut-off date, in immigration parlance, is synonymous with the so-called “priority date,” which is a visa applicant’s place in line or priority queue for immigrant visa issuance.
While irregular priority date movements are not unusual, especially due to the unprecedented impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the immigration process in general and the consular processing stage in particular, the Visa Bulletin’s unpredictability has become more pronounced in recent years.
After the pandemic, visa cut-off date movements have, at times, been characterized by rapid accelerations in the Visa Bulletin — especially within the various employment-based visa categories — generating widespread but misplaced excitements and anticipations among visa applicants.
Unfortunately for this group, reverse shifts in visa cut-off date movements caused the obverse emotions of anguish and despair, resulting in even deeper agony for some.
Notably, there were instances in which visa applicants who were already scheduled for interview — after years and even decades of waiting to get one — were suddenly notified of interview cancellations due to unexpected visa availability pullbacks.
Worse, cases abound in which visa applicants whose interviews were temporarily put on hold due to medical screening delays failed to get another interview opportunity due to sudden visa retrogressions.
Sadly, this unlucky group of visa applicants may not get to see the inside of the US Embassy or have an audience with a consular officer until sometime next year, at the earliest.
Why? Because the latest Visa Bulletin portends another visa retrogression nightmare that can potentially upend visa availability for months, or even years, to come.
Indeed, the US State Department makes a dire prediction in the latest issue of the Visa Bulletin about an imminent heavy retrogression, if not outright visa unavailability, in the third-preference employment-based (EB-3) category, to which the majority of immigrating foreign workers belong, such as nurses, caregivers, teachers, computer professionals, and the like.
If this occurs, no more EB-3 visas will be issued through the end of the fiscal year on September 30th and potentially until the end of the year, if not longer.
Luckily for some of this corner’s clients, visas were still available these past few months despite the Visa Bulletin’s shifty movements, resulting in newly minted green card holders and a few jubilant relatives and employers on the East Coast.
For those still waiting, all is not lost, however.
Sooner or later, the proverbial dice will hit a come-out roll of seven or eleven on a Pass Line bet, or Mr. Gump will pick a cherry-flavored candy from the assorted box manufactured by US Choc-a-Visa Co.
A never-ending cycle of jubilation and despair, it is.