The I-485 Inventory Numbers Require Attention

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released the most recent inventory numbers of employment-based green card applications on its newly-designed website1 in late September of 2009. These statistics are released in a comprehensive manner, categorized by country of chargeability and preference category. Although visa backlog has been a known problem for many years, these well-organized statistics still provide a clear picture as to exactly where the congestions are and where each visa applicant stands in the multilayered queues for immigration.

How is the visa pie dived up?

A quick review of the congressional allocation of employment visa numbers will be helpful for the analysis of these I-485 inventory numbers. Section 201(d)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allocates an annual minimum of 140,000 visa numbers for employment-based immigrant visas. Although there are 140,000 employment visas available for worldwide usage, each country may not take more than 7% or 25,620 of the annual visa quota.2 Furthermore, each of the five employment visa preference category is subject to the following limits:3

First (Priority Worker): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus unused numbers from the fourth and fifth preferences.

Second (Advanced degree professionals or exceptional ability aliens): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus unused numbers from first preference.

Third (Skill Workers, Professionals and Other Workers): 28.6% of the worldwide quota, or 40,040, plus any numbers not used by the first and second preferences. “Other Workers” may only receive up to 10,000 of the visa numbers.4

Fourth (Certain Special Immigrants): 7.1% of the worldwide quota or 9,940.

Fifth (Employment Creation): 7.1% of the worldwide quota.

What is the big picture like?

Generally speaking, there are no big surprises regarding the big picture. There are altogether 233,816 I-485 adjustment applications as of August 25, 2009 pending adjudication before the USCIS, of which 4,050 belong to Eb-1, 74,932 to Eb-2, and151,231 to Eb-3. In terms of geographical distribution, 26,170 cases come from China, 111,296 from India, 12,481 from the Philippines, 8,415 from Mexico, and 74,914 from the rest of the world. Visa numbers remind very tight for the most popular preference categories including Eb-2 second preference and Eb-3 third preference. As expected, the countries which have triggered the per-country cap in recent years are suffering a multi-year backlog of visa numbers. These countries – China (Mainland), India, Mexico, and the Philippines – all have their own I-485 inventory tables. While all countries are struggling in the Eb-3 preference category, China and India are also having a huge backlog in the second preference category. The “other countries” are also looking at a multi-year wait in the third preference category, with a dismal priority date of June 1, 2002 in the October 2009 Visa Bulletin.5 The Eb-1 Priority Worker category remains current for all countries.

Putting the numbers in perspective

There are different ways that these inventory numbers can be useful and analyzed. The following are some interesting observations:

These I-485 inventory numbers represent only the immigrant cases that are filed within the U.S. only. The USCIS indicates that about 15% of the immigrant visas are processed through overseas consular processing. Hence, the actual numbers of applicants for an immigrant visa are actually higher.
There are still 6,170 I-485 applications pending from April 2001, plus another 500+ cases from 2000 and the first three months of 2001. Many of these cases were likely filed under or in anticipation of the INA Section 245(i)6 provision. However, the impact of these cases has dissipated over the years. The most current Visa Bulletin shows that only India’s Eb-3 category has a cutoff date in April of 2001.
The notion that Eb-2 cases are faster than their Eb-3 counterparts still holds true for now but may begin to change soon. While all countries are backlogged under Eb-3, all but two countries are current in Eb-2. China and India have respectively 18,365 and 39,972 I-485 applications pending in the Eb-2 category due to visa backlog. (See Illustration 1 below) In fact, China has three times more Eb-2 cases than Eb-3 cases. The worldwide I-485 inventory table with all pending cases7 shows the number of pending Eb-2 cases was trailing Eb-3 until 2008; the year 2008 has 4,235 pending Eb-2 cases vs. 540 pending Eb-3 cases. Similar trend is also present in the India table, where the number of pending Eb-2 cases first surpassed Eb-3 in the year 2005.8
The number of pending “other workers” cases is proportionately low, with only 1,520 pending I-485s worldwide. One can draw the conclusion that the majority of intending (employment-based) immigrants are skilled workers and professionals.

[read the full story at ilw]

About The Author

Paul Szeto, Esq. is a former INS assistant district counsel in New York City. A winner of the AILF’s Edward L. Dubroff Memorial Award for outstanding writing in the field of Immigration and Nationality Law in 1994, Paul is now in private practice in Edison, New Jersey, focusing on Immigration and Nationality Law. Paul Szeto can be reached at info@szetolaw.com.