NEO2023

This is strange. What are your thoughts on the September visa bulletin section G: (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2024/visa-bulletin-for-september-2024.html) At the end of the fiscal year 2024, NVC complains that USCIS did not provide them enough information to calculate the annual limits. I wonder how they calculated it for the whole year? 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 July 19th, USCIS provided the required data to the VO.

This is from Ankara embassy. Proof of your U.S. petitioner’s status and domicile in the United States (photocopy of a U.S. passport, naturalization certificate, or lawful permanent resident card). https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Supplements/Supplements_by_Post/ANK-Ankara.html#pre_interview_checklist I think state id and a medical bill is sufficient. You may include a utility bill under the name of your mother if you want. But don't forget to include a copy of LPR card.

Thanks for the information. That's a regulation, not a law. Currently, the law remains silent on this issue. However, due to this regulation, if one goes to court in the event of a visa denial due to marriage, he is likely to lose.

The original question is whether the petition becomes void when her brother gets married. As I said, the law is silent on this issue, which means it's a grey area. If someone claims the petition is void, they should provide a reference to the relevant legal rule. Regarding the brother's visa situation, if he was still married during the interview, he would not be eligible for a visa. However, since he is already divorced, his marital status at the interview will be unmarried. The law could certainly benefit from an update to address situations like this. However, as we know, US immigration law dates back to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA). Back then, waiting lines for visas likely weren't a major concern!

INA 203(a)(2)(B) says that for the petition to be valid, your brother should be unmarried, which your brother satisfied in 2016. In addition to that, AFAIK, law is silent about what happens while waiting for visa. Since he is currently unmarried, I don't think there will be any problem with his interview.

Family preference category lost another 21,000 visas in 2023, which were rolled over to the employment category, bringing the total number of employment category visas for 2024 to 161,000 (140000+ 21,000).

You are right. Roughly, 19K of 38K is for immediate relatives. 2K is for employment preference category. 17K is for family preference category.

They did the same mistake on July 2022. In July 2022, thousands of documentarily complete applications were erroneously designated with "non-allocated" status. They later corrected the calculation from 352,210 to 409,645.

You are right that for fairness no country should receive more than 7% of of each sub-category. But, immigration law says that no country should receive more than 7% of the sum of both family based and employment category. It is silent about sub-categories (like F1, F2, F3, and F4). Theoretically, one country can fill one sub-category. That is not fair, for sure.

I am telling that this month's backlog data is wrong. They can NOT magically eliminate applicants from the queue. Compare the September and August data, and see for yourself. :-(

Whoever wrote this backlog report in the department of state completely messed up. 275K does not reflect the truth. According to https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/iv-backlog-report/IV Report - August 2023.pdf Number of eligible IV applicants still pending the scheduling of an interview after August 2023 appointment scheduling was completed was 339,081. In the best case scenario, assume that no new applicant was documentarily qualified after August 2023. 39347 applicants scheduled for September (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/visas-backlog.html) That left us with 299734 applicants (339081-39347 = 299734), not 275506. That is the best case without any new documentarily qualified applicants. Assuming that there is on average at least 20000 new DQ applicants per month, this number should be around 325000.

For the backlog analysis of each post, you can refer to the excel document at https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/nvcs-interview-scheduling-backlog-report-disclosed-a-way-to-learn-about-visa-interview-backlogs-at-consular-offices-around-the-world. I could not upload the excel file here due to size limit. It is very detailed document.

The limit is 29,616 for FY-2023. It is written in the second paragraph (A)(2) at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2023/visa-bulletin-for-september-2023.html I expect a significant forward movement in F2B category in the next three months.