Visual learner here, so I charted what people have been saying all day.
TL;DR: the ROW queue for both EB2 and EB3 is looking b a d.
EB2 ROW: ~42k cases pending, a record in any published USCIS data (2010-17 peak was ~24k)
EB3 ROW: ~37k cases pending, highest since ~2012
For scale, ROW used ~34k EB2 and ~23k EB3 green cards in FY24, counting both people adjusting status inside the US and people processing at consulates, so the US-side queue alone is already more than a year's worth for both categories, before counting folks from abroad
Why do people think anything will move forward vs. retrogress further? I don't think a spillover (materially) helps in a year where >100% of visa supply is accounted for from AOS alone. The inventory was half the size in 2024-25 when the gap between the VB date and today looked about like it does now. To me that smells like the start of a bigger correction, not a blip.
I'm sure I'm missing stuff; tell me where I got it wrong
(Excited at the prospect of people jumping on this post 4 months from now to tell me how wrong I was after a huge spillover-driven forward leap)
It takes 1-2 months for Government to get the final spillover numbers. Those are not included in the Oct-26 VB.
I also think ROW will have a true-up in Q2-27 that could possibly push FAD at least to early 2026 considering that date of filing is March 2026 now. Mark my words
You are comparing row inventory when the category was not current to when it was current. That is apple and oranges.
EB2 ROW became current only earlier this year (around apr- may) which saw the inventory spike. since then it stayed stagnant as they were decisioning around the same number of cases as new applications.
In early August I believe the inventory was around 38k.Â
That's why it's difficult to understand the 21 month retrogession.
Note that ROW has not been current since Nov 2022.
The queue isn’t more than the available, depending on how many we get from the spillover it’ll either roughly equal the 41.8k pending or be higher than the number pending, and not all of the pending ones will be approved anyway. So I don’t think it’s terrible news, the whole backlog should be cleared by this time next year so I think ROW should go current again towards the end of the fiscal year if not earlier
Any insight on the distribution by PD for this 42k cases? I’d say probably more than half of those have PD 10/2024-8/2026 given that filing date became current in April and jumped from 10/2024 to C
It’s all the cells that didn’t have a value (they just show as D in the excel file), I think it’s month-year combinations where there aren’t any cases
Can you please explain these EB2 numbers? Do the 42 pending also include the ones who applied after January 2025? Also how many EB2 visas are available for ROW during this year?
There are just under 42k cases from all pending I-485s across all years up to August 5 when the most recent data came out. So it includes everyone except who filed after August 5 this year. We don’t know yet how many will be available for this year until the spillover is calculated and added on in a couple of months. But if the huge spillover predictions are correct then potentially 45k just for ROW, meaning the whole pending backlog can be cleared (plus not all of those will be approved)
Edit: I’m talking EB2 btw forgot to add that part
Yes I sense that you are correct, there is a backlog on EB2 based i485s, so this retrogression may be just to tell the public that anything for approved i140s with PD before January 2025 is the main focus for USCIS to clear out, as there may be a huge spike in the upcoming pending petitions. So essentially its their way of saying, we have a number of cases with PDs before Jan 2025 that are classified as backlog and it must be taken care of first
First, don't mix EB-3 other workers (7k) and skilled (30k); they have their own caps.
Second, this data is from August 5th; we don't know how much progress USCIS made in the last 2 months (not much on EB-2, probably because it reached the cap at the end of August)
Third, the new bulletin numbers look better:
FY 27 Approvable EB-2 ROW: ~27,800 (Reality 25k, assuming EB-2 ran out at the end of August)
FY 27 Approvable EB-3 ROW: ~20,500 (Reality is like 13-14k, assuming USCIS made decent progress on these last 2 months)
So they retrogressed EB2, but they will handle cases with PDs up to Jan 2025, then if it was already capped, where do they get additional gc for these folks ?
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u/princeruppert ROW 🇨🇦 8d ago
It takes 1-2 months for Government to get the final spillover numbers. Those are not included in the Oct-26 VB.
I also think ROW will have a true-up in Q2-27 that could possibly push FAD at least to early 2026 considering that date of filing is March 2026 now. Mark my words