The Department of State published its Visa Bulletin for July 2007 on June 13. It announced that employment-based immigration visa numbers were available for all chargeability areas and all categories, except unskilled worker. This new progress ignited new hopes for tens of thousands people who wanted to apply green card but could not act because of the immigration retrogression in the past two years. Potential applicants and their attorneys worked hard in the past two weeks to prepare petitions with a plan to file their cases early in July.

However, the Department of State released a revision of the Visa Bulletin for July 2007 early on Monday, July 02, 2007. It announced that immigrant visa numbers of this year for all employment based categories had been used and the USCIS would not accept any new I-485 filings until October 1, 2007, when the visa numbers for the fiscal year of 2008 becomes available.

Anger, frustration, disbelief, and complains are plaguing among tens of thousands of people who planned to file their I-485 petitions in July. We, as an attorney firm, are also frustrated by the unexpected change in the situation. Our attorneys and supporting professionals worked very hard in the past two weeks to help our clients to expedite the preparation of their cases. We filed around 100 I-485 cases on Saturday, June 30 for delivery on Monday, July 2, the first business day of July. Unfortunately, these cases will be returned by USCIS too. This unexpected action of the federal government is shocking and disturbing to all of us.

Now, let’s calm down and contemplate the whole event, and what we can learn from this experience. As reflected by a series of events which occurred this year, if there is no change in immigration law, immigrants are facing more and more pressure in the road to work legally and eventually permanently reside in this country. There is too much uncertainty and unpredictability in the immigration policies and regulations.

On April 1, 2007, 65,000 regular H-1B caps were exhausted on the first day when USCIS started accepting petitions. Then, on April 30, 2007, the 20000 H-1B caps for foreign workers who have earned a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher education were run out again. Many qualified workers had to give up their jobs and struggle to maintain a legal non-immigrant status.

On May 30, 2007, USCIS announced a significant fee increases starting from July 30, 2007. This fee increase will add substantial financial burden on applicants after the effective date.

On May 17, 2007, Department of Labor determined to terminate the practice of substituting beneficiaries in labor certification cases starting from July 17, 2007. Premium Processing service was temporarily suspended from July 2 to August 1. All these changes are unpredictable and unfavorable to applicants.

The change of visa bulletin is even more unpredictable. On June 13, 2007, Department of State announced that visa numbers were available to almost all employment based immigration categories. However, the door was suddenly slammed on the first business day of July. Actually, it’s almost impossible to predict the next move of the Visa Bulletin. It came out at nobody’s expectation.

Looking back at the visa bulletin history, we may see its wild swings. In October 2005, Visa Bulletin retrogressed 5 years. Then, from October 2005 to July 2006, there was a big progress, for example, Cut-off dates for China EB2 moved ahead 5 years within 9 months. Since then, there was 10-months stagnancy. In June 2007, there was another big leap. Cut-off dates of EB2 for both China and India moved ahead more than half a year. Now, not a single visa number is available to all applicants for any country in the next three months!

Now, there is not too much we can do the change the situation about Visa Bulletin. However, we at Zhang & Associates would like to share some thoughts with you when we face the inconsistent actions from the Department of State.

Immigration policies may change now and then. It is pointless to predict the change and bond your action to it. Actually, it is unpredictable. Sometimes favorable changes could happen; sometime, unfavorable bars can occur suddenly on the road to green card. However, our own efforts is predictable. What we can do is to make ourselves ready as soon as possible. Whenever there is an opportunity, for example, a move in visa Bulletin, we can take action right away. Preparation of immigration petitions can never be done over night. It takes a relatively long period time, as several different parties are involved and we have to prepare many documents. So, we need to make preparations early.

It’s always better to file your immigration petition as early as possible. There is too much uncertainty and unpredictability we can bear in the green card application process, like change of policy, visa number availability, delay even errors in USCIS processing, name check stuck in FBI, and so on. If your immigration petition is filed, you’re in the line for the priority date. If immigration numbers are not available, we can get I-140 approved first. When immigrant visas retrogress (cut off date applies), the visa number is going to be distributed according to a priority date. The priority date for an alien is established when I-140 is filed (or PERM is filed if through Labor Certification). Filing an I-140 or PERM early can get you an early priority date.

Another advantage to file immigration applications early is that you have plenty of time to choose the best attorneys. For example, as visa numbers were announced available for almost all EB categories in June 2007, an unprecedented big number of aliens want to submit immigration petitions. It is hard to find experienced attorneys to handle their cases. If you file early, you can study a law firm’s work records through all kinds of channels, and see if you would like the firm in the early-stage communication.

You may have noticed that we suspended case intake in June in order to guarantee high quality of service we provide to our existing clients. Now, with the rush of filing I-485s behind us, we are providing free evaluation and taking new cases again.

In the past eleven years, Professor Peter Drucker’s words have been our inspiration and compass and we put them on our website for many years: “The only way to predict your future is simple to create it.” Fifty-five professionals at Zhang and Associates are committed to help you to create and fulfill your American Dream.

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The attorneys and supporting professionals at Zhang & Associates, P.C. are committed to providing high quality work and professional services to our existing clients. There might be uncertainty in the policies or regulations of USCIS, but we are consistently providing the best service to our clients. When immigrant visas retrogress (cut off date applies), the visa number is going to be distributed according to a priority date. The priority date for an alien is established when I-140 is filed (or PERM is filed if through Labor Certification). So, we urge that those who can file I-140 petition (NIW, EB-1A or EB-1B) to file their I-140 as soon as possible to receive an earlier priority date, and in turn will receive an immigration visa (eligibility to file I-485 application) earlier.

We temporarily suspended case intake in June in order to guarantee high quality of service we provide to our existing clients. Now, we are providing free green card application evaluations and taking new cases again.

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