Greencard number calculation for applicant born in India for FY20–21

Recently, USCIS published the Oct 2020 visa bulletin which shows an increase in number of visas available for employment based category. There are lot of articles written around this content, here i am attempting to estimate the possible number of green card issued this financial year to applicant born in India. In recent bulletin, Indian born applicant with green card application filed with priority date of 1 Jan 2015 ( EB3) were allowed to submit their application for adjustment of status. This doesn’t guarantee immediate green card but does allow some benefits related to EAD and AP. This article estimates how many people might potentially receive green card in FY21 once they filed the application for Adjustment of status.

https://redbus2us.com/filing-date-vs-final-action-date/

Visa Bulletin- https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2021/visa-bulletin-for-october-2020.html

In this bulletin, USCIS mentioned that there are 261500 green card visas available for FY21 for employment based category.

Given the fact that USCIS have 261500 visas available for FY21 EB, it is expected to be distributed across all Employment based category based on below calculation.

Visa bulletin provides this calculation detail as mentioned below.

USCIS caps the maximum number of visa that can be used by any country to 7%, Indian born applicant receives following visa for FY21 ( 40040 * 7/100) , (34749*7/100). Spillover of 29884 is the expected spillover from ROW, i.e. : (34749 * 86/100) — (Reducing 7% for India and 7% for China). EB3 spillover for India can have further reduction based on Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam.

EB1 for India and china are both backlogged to similar state with PD between Mar 2018 to July 2018. Thus USCIS will attempt to level the priority date for both, which means that spillover of 29884 will be divided among India and china with an objective to clear all backlog or keep the backlog similar across both.

So let’s talk about EB1 pending applications.

Going by the I-140 stats published by USCIS ( https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/I140_rec_by_class_country_FY2020_Q1_Q2.pdf)

China has 10800 I-140 application approved/pending under EB1 between 2018 to 2020 and India has nearly 18000 application under the same category and time period. Since USCIS estimates 1.4 dependent per applicant in EB1 category. In order for EB1 to clear all backlog, it needs nearly 69000 visas across India and China. For FY21 India and China both have (2802 + 2432 + 2802 + 2432 + 29884) = 40352 visas available. Only 16813 application can be handled for EB1 during this years green card processing.

I-140 -Application in 2018, 2019 for EB1

2018 China 4612, 2018 India 7643 | 2019 China 4303, 2018 India 7157

Total Application in 2018 = 12255 & 2019 = 11460

It’s difficult to estimate the spillover from EB1 ROW, if there are reduced immigration in 2020. I also ignore the fact that there will be new filing for EB1 from India and china for 2020, but since I ignored the existing processed case for EB1 for 2018 until June, i am assuming it will cover the concurrent filing done in 2020. Thus by the last quarter of FY21, i estimate EB1 category to be close to Dec 2019 with anticipation of some spillover from ROW.

Find the USCIS estimate details here ( https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/foia/Count_of_Approved_I-140_I-360_and_I-526_Petitions_as_of_April_20_2018_with_a_Priority_Date_On_or_After_May_2018.PDF)

Let’s talk about EB2 India now. USCIS was adjudicating EB2 application for Indian born with Priority date of July 2009. Given the fact that EB2 India will have a capacity of (29884+2802+2432) = 35118 visas and with an estimation of 1 dependent each applicant only 17559 application can be handled by USCIS for EB2 in FY21, with 15k I-140 filed in 2010 and 22k filed in 2011, USCIS estimation suggests that EB2 final action should reach close to June 2011. Given the fact that most of the applicant with PD until June 2011 in EB2 should be able to receive green card this year. Others might have to wait for next year quota. Thus at the end of FY21, i anticipate the final action date for EB2 India to be close to June 2011.

For EB3 there is no expected spillover from EB2 as there is huge backlog, but EB3 individual quota for India will be (2802 + 2432) = 5234 and there will be spillover from ROW. Since EB3 is not current across many countries, its possible for (4–5 Countries ) quota to not spillover to India. Thus if we assume EB3 spillover will be used by 5 countries, then India being the most retrogressed can expect 65% of spillover from ROW. i.e : (34749 * 65/100)

(22586 + 5234) = 27820 Visas for EB3 available to Indian born applicant.

Given the estimate of 1.1 dependent by USCIS, 13k applications are expected to be cleared for EB3 India.

EB3 I-140 application from 2010 to 2014 is following and it will take nearly 25k application to be processed to cover 2014 dates. Its also estimated that EB3 from ROW will spillover to nearly 8k this year and it should have helped USCIS to issue Greencard for Indian born applicant for up-to 2014 Dec PD.

But since there are lot of downgrades that happened in Oct / Nov. The estimation for EB3 is going to change. Most of the EB2 applicant with PD greater than May 2011 would wish to downgrade to EB3 to utilize the date of filing and they will lead to EB3 final action date retrogression.

Assume all the May-2011 to Jan 2015 applicant in EB2 downgraded to EB3, there will be close to 80000 applicants eligible to downgrade from EB2 to EB3. Since EB3 India can only process close to13k visas this year, with downgrade application EB3 Final action date will go close to March 2012.

So to summarize, the estimation of final action date across all three category of employment based green card for Indian born will be following. Note this is an estimation only based on certain data points that USCIS provided.

These dates are estimated to be for the last quarter of FY21, since USCIS allocates spillover every quarter. It’s difficult to estimate how many visas will be unused by ROW in employment based category this year, assuming past trend and reduced immigration due to COVID, there might be some spillover from ROW that could help better these dates. Its difficult to predict how ROW will use the employment based visa this year and its also difficult to estimate the number of people with multiple I-140 across EB category and primary and derivative applicant.

Last, i want to put a disclaimer that i am neither an attorney nor an expert but just a data enthusiast. I had some free time this week and wanted to do some data churning and share my views. These are not accurate figures and just an estimation. If you are not convinced with any calculation here, please use your own judgement based on the data provided by USCIS.