The State Department has posted the December 2019 Visa Bulletin. The Visa Bulletin summarizes the availability of immigrant numbers for U.S. green card applicants in visa categories with quotas or limits. There are no quotas for U.S. citizens sponsoring their spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents. To understand where you stand in the visa line, you need to know your visa category, your priority date, and your “country of chargeability” which is usually your country of birth.. The preference categories in the Visa Bulletin are F1, F2A, F2B, F3, F4, and EB-1, EB-2,EB-3, EB-4, and EB-5. F categories are family-based. EB categories are employment based.
For Filipinos:
F1 category: unmarried children over 21 of U.S. citizens. Visas are available for priority date before Nov 1, 2008.
F2A: spouses and unmarried children under 21 of Lawful Permanent Residents. Visas are available for all priority dates.
F2B: unmarried children over 21 of Lawful Permanent Residents. F2B beneficiaries cannot marry. Visas are available for all priority dates before Dec. 1 2008.
F3: adult married children of U.S. citizens and their spouse and unmarried children under 21. Visas are available for priority dates before Sept. 1 1998.
F4: siblings of U.S. citizens and their spouse and unmarried children under 21. Visas are available for priority dates before Dec. 15 1998.
EB-3 is the most common employment based category used to sponsor Filipino workers for green cards, including nurses and other healthcare workers and a certain number of unskilled workers. Visas are available for priority dates before March 1 2018.
The good news for Filipinos is that visa numbers are currently available in the F2A category – spouses and minor children of U.S. green card holders (Lawful Permanent Residents). Nurse visas are moving along also.
There’s often a wait of 1-2 years in this category but not at the moment. What does this mean? Let’s say you’ve just immigrated to the U.S. in the F2B category – you’re an unmarried child over 21; or a derivative unmarried child in the F3 or F4 category. There are 2 major steps in petitioning your relative. After immigrating to the U.S. you can return to the Philippines and marry your fiance/e, then return to the U.S. and file an I-130 petition with USCIS for your spouse or child in the F2A category. As for EB-3 nurses and other professionals from the Philippines, visas are available for those with a priority date before March 1, 2018. USCIS and the NVC are preparing all filed EB-3 applications for interviews, but you can’t get your green card until the visa is available.
The USCIS and NVC process.
According to the USCIS website case processing times tool, it currently takes anywhere from 5 weeks to over 2 years for them to make a decision in this type of petition. If USCIS approves the petition, they then send the file to the National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire, U.S., which prepares the case for the Manila embassy interview. The NVC collects fees and reviews financial and biographical documents. But the NVC does not start their processing until it appears your case is getting near to when a visa will be available. Some categories – such F3 or F4 (adult married children and siblings of U.S. citizens) have waiting lines of 10 – 25 years so your file will just sit on the NVC shelves while time passes.
When the NVC finishes its review, your case is “documentarily qualified.” The next step is for the NVC to schedule an interview at the Manila embassy. The interview is scheduled when it looks like a visa will soon be available. This is why the current F2A visa availability is so important. If the NVC “documentarily qualifies” your case, the Manila interview can be scheduled without delay.
Can your case move more quickly?
The Department of State’s Charlie Oppenheim is in charge of this complicated system of visa availability and issues comments each month. This month he stated that “applicants are still failing to become documentarily qualified as quickly as they could be. As long as this continues, expect continued forward movement of the applicable final action dates.” This means applicants could be getting their cases through the NVC more quickly – this is where an experienced immigration attorney can help!
The visa backlog is real but you should keep track of the Visa Bulletin each month as the visa availability dates change monthly. The more you know, the better you can manage the progress of your case – and reunite with your family members.
