Immigrants Start Reporting EB-485 Approvals After July 1 Using Visa Numbers Taken Out Both Before and After June 30, 2007
There are fairly large number of reports by both immigrants and immigration lawyers that they received I-485 application approvals which were decided in the last few days. These approvals include two groups. The first group is those whose visa numbers were available but not decided in June but after July 2, 2007. The second group is those whose visa numbers were not available in June but decided after July 2, 2007. The lawyers use a term "tagged" to explain the situaiton where visa number was taken out but the case has not been adjudicated until the visa number became "unavailable" because of the reconfigulation of July Visa Bulletin by the State Department on July 2, 2007.
Obviously for the first group, the visa numbers were massively taken out before July 1, 2007 using the June Visa Bulletin. For the second group, the visa numbers were again massively taken out on July 1 and part of July 2. The evidence reflects that at 11: 27 a.m. of July 2, 2007, the Visa Control Office of the State Department frantically sent out an "Urgent" fax to the Adjudication Office of the USCIS notifying that all the FY 2007 EB visa numbers had been authorized and exhausted and effective July 2, 2007, there would be no more visa authorization available for the EB 485 cases. The fax notice advised the USCIS to quickly notify all the officials involved in the EB-485 processing and adjudications. Considering the fact that these officials are located in the four Service Centers and local fields offices in 50 states and other locations, these officials might not have received actual notice quite late afternoon on the date. Assumedly, the second group are those people whose visa numbers were authorized by the State Department on July 1 and July 2, 2007 using the July 2007 Visa Bulletin before reconfigualtion. Obviously, the USCIS has been continuously processing and approving these cases at a late date in July 2007. As we all know, there was information that the USCIS had been returning the visa numbers to the State Department on the ground that they could not determine the cases. Soon, we will find out what type of cases have been returned and how many, but from the fact which was described above, the most typical cases could have been those which they took out on July 2, 2007. Accordingly, the total number of visa authorization which the USCIS has returned to the State Department may not turn out to be that large in numbers.
Assuming that the visa numbers have indeed been returned to the State Department, it is mysterious why the State Department has not revised again the July Visa Bulletin to reflect the visa numbers which have become available through such recaptures. Considering the fact that they made July Visa Bulletin "Current" in all categories in the inital release on June 13, 2007, but they reconfigured July Visa Bulletin "Unavailable" effective July 2 based on their record that all numbers had been exhausted, obviously the reconfigured July Visa Bulletin is no longer correct since some numbers have been made availabve since then because of the returning of some numbers by the USCIS. Notwithstanding the fact, the State Department has remained silent. There has been delay in releasing the August 2007 Visa Bulletin, but without doubt, it may be released tomorrow or very soon. It is interesting to watch how the State Department will handle the situation in the August 2007 Visa Bulletin. Educated guess is that they may not be able to say in the August 2007 Visa Bulletin that the visa numbers will be totally unavailable when the fact of the matter is that some visa numbers may be there in the Department's storage. Please stay tuned.