Great News for Indian and Chinese EB-1 Green Card Applicants

USCIS is now taking the Adjustment of Status components of the EB-1 green cards for citizens of India and China who filed their EB-1s as recently as January 1st, 2020.

In the Biden Administration’s second month in office, they have now expedited the Extraordinary Ability, Multinational Executive, and Outstanding Researcher component to have priority dates that are only a month and a half old.

This is very good news for the best and the brightest from China and India who wish to obtain permanent residency in the U.S. as they could now achieve that much more quickly. It means priority dates are very close to current. That means, if they file their I-140 today and use premium processing, they would be able to file their adjustment of status at around the time their case was approved.

The rest of the world category can file their Adjustment of Status concurrently as they file the I-140 component of their green card process. But China and India (among a couple of other countries) have so far had to wait a very long time.

Slowdown on EB-2 and EB-3 Categories

Note that the second category, EB-2 visas for National Interest Waivers or professionals with advanced degrees or at least five years’ experience in their profession, has actually slowed down.

In February 2020, the priority date was set at January 15, 2010. However, from March 2021, it was October 12, 2009. That equates to a further delay of three more months on top of an already very long delay of almost 12 years.

Unfortunately, the EB-3 also regressed three months from July 2010 back to April 2010.

All of this may prove to be a moot point if the Biden Bill goes through, which could do a couple of things:

1. Anybody who has already waited ten years would not have to wait any longer;
2. Also, those who receive advanced degrees (Master’s or PhD’s) from U.S. universities in certain professions would be exempt from having to wait in these lines as well.

Another outcome may be that the authorities remove all categories of countries from the green card processing. If that happens, it will probably speed up applications from India but is likely to slow down the rest of the world. Again, numerous countries have no wait whatsoever right now.

See the video (above) for full details.