Posted July 11, 2007
Visa numbers WERE available July 2nd!!
We have confirmed with a knowledgeable official in the Department of State Visa Office that USCIS was requesting visa numbers on Sunday July 1st, and Monday morning July 2nd - and that visa numbers were still being issued as late as the morning of July 2nd!
In fact, close to 30,000 visa numbers were requested and issued in July - through the morning of July 2nd. And we believe that many - if not most - of the requests made in the first two days of July were for applicants whose priority dates were not current in June!
So how can USCIS refuse to accept I-485 filings received BEFORE the State Department issued its notice that all visa numbers had been used???? We have not yet confirmed the return of any I-485s filed in July. But we do know that applications were reaching the USCIS before the State Department announcement - and while the USCIS was frantically working to use up the entire year's allocation.
USCIS did not use all visa numbers before July 2nd.
Did USCIS actually use the visa numbers it requested????
Historically, the USCIS doesn't request a visa number from the Department of State until it is ready to grant the adjustment of status application. US Consuls overseas request visa numbers the month before they intend to issue the immigrant visa. This is the reason why consuls return about ten percent of the visa numbers requested - and why USCIS does not generally return any numbers.
In fact, in making allocations of visa numbers, the Department of State factors in an expected return rate for consuls - but not for the USCIS. And the USCIS - before this June - used about 85% of the total immigrant visa numbers available.
However, already this month, the USCIS has been returning visa numbers. This confirms our earlier suspicion that the only way the USCIS could request 68,000 visa numbers in a matter of weeks was to request them in advance of adjudicating cases.
We believe USCIS exhausted the visa numbers by simply requesting them - not by using them. If so, and for reasons we will post shortly, we believe that over 30,000 visa numbers requested by USCIS will go unused - and will be wasted this year!
Posted July 9, 2007