Retrogression Math for Dummies - EB3 India Edition

For the seventh month in a row, the Employment based third preference category (EB3) visa cut-off date for persons born in India remains in April 2001. During the same period, EB3 worldwide has advanced by 13 months to August, 2002. Before reaching the April 2001 brick wall the cut-off date had moved steadily by 3 months during the previous 3 months.

So what could be possible reasons for this stalling? Some think that since Schedule A numbers are now used up, they're allocating EB3 numbers to the them and since a majority of the Schedule A numbers went to nurses and the likes from India, EB3 India is now at a stand still.

Others think its because of the amnesty given to illegal immigrants under section 245(i) which had a cut-off date of April 2001 and many illegal Indian immigrants may have taken advantage of this provision. This still wouldn't explain why countries like Mexico with traditionally higher number of illegal immigrants have better cut-off dates than India.

Finally that's when you switch on your calculator and start working with the numbers. There are 140,000 visa numbers available under all the employment based categories, with 7% per country limit and 28.6% allocated for EB3 and dependents counted into the numbers, there are only about 115 EB3 primary applicants allowed from India per month. Throw in a few thousand illegals into the mix and now you have the royal screw-up as is happening now. The law allows visa numbers from unused countries to be transferred to the oversubscribed countries but with nearly every category retrogressed this law won't apply for a while.

So there you have it, unless there is a change in law to at least temporarily accommodate the thousands of applicants whose lives are in limbo there is no chance that we'll see the numbers move anytime soon.

Here's a solution that would appeal to all those of you who say "well, if you don't like it then you can leave!". To them I would say, since a majority of the EB3 applicants were once on H1-B visas, why don't we put a 7% per country limit on the on H1-B visa numbers. That way only an equal number of people from India or China would come in as would from Kazakhstan and you wouldn't have this problem. You know that's never gonna happen. Why? Because the U.S. needs the Indian and Chinese skilled professionals in thousands to keep themselves globally competitive. The visas expire but there's always a new pool of foreign workers eager to come in (with the hope of green cards) every year. When its time to give them back something in return, they whimper. Grow some hair!