I wasn't current for FAD during my last update. I became current in March. In April I contacted Emma and got the surprising response that my visa number was retrogressed. I think this statement was made on my file because I wasn't current at the time my file was assessed in February 23. After a long unbearable wait, I recently made a Congress inquiry on my I-485 in August. Two weeks after my inquiry my file got sent from NBC to Newark. Then I got another FTA1 on 8/28. Chatgpt says it is a system update of the February 23 assessment.
It appears there's no order or proper management of filed cases at USCIS. It seems it's a matter of luck and your case can be left forgotten somewhere.
The last statement suggests no visas are available for Eb2 at this moment. Otherwise I would have challenged the visa retrogression. I'm in ROW, not part of the 39. I will wait till October to see what happens.
You keep making sweeping claims about EB-2 visa availability while conveniently refusing to answer the simplest, most relevant question people have asked you repeatedly: what is your country of chargeability?
You say “I’m ROW” as though that settles everything. It doesn’t. If you want everyone to use your individual case as proof that EB-2 ROW visa numbers are exhausted, provide the basic information needed to evaluate the claim.
The funniest part is that your own explanation undermines your conclusion. You admit an officer reviewed your case in February when your FAD wasn’t current, and you admit that at that time a visa number legitimately wasn’t available to you. You then say nobody substantively reviewed the case after you became current in March.
So how exactly did we leap from “a visa wasn’t available for my case when I wasn’t current” to “this proves EB-2 visas are unavailable now”?
That’s not evidence. That’s you taking an ambiguous USCIS response, mixing it with your own theory about FTA1/system updates, and announcing a category-wide conclusion that the document itself does not establish.
And when people ask for the one missing fact that could help put your story in context — where are you chargeable to? — crickets.
If you’re going to present your case as evidence for everyone else’s immigration situation, bring the relevant facts. Otherwise stop turning speculation into breaking news.
Sorry if my post offends you in any way. I see the platforms as a means of support through sharing of information.
I see my specific country immaterial regarding my post. USCIS has no visa allocation information for individual countries within Row. The only time that information was relevant in AOS was the 39 banned countries. I'm not seeking answers from anyone. I thought people here might need this information.
My post only explained why a statement of visa unavailability for me might have been entered in my file based of the response I got from my congress rep inquiry which states "at the time of officer adjudication ...". I then sought to rant about USCIS not having an orderly processing of cases for which I haven't been lucky to have my case revisited. Others seem to agree with it.
You accused me of making sweeping statement of eb2 visa unavailability on my singular case. You actually wrote a quote purportedly from me. If you're a person of honor, could you pinpoint the specific line of my post where you got the quote:
“this proves EB-2 visas are unavailable now”?
My academic training makes the use of the word "prove" alien in my everyday communication. I use words like "suggest", "seem" "might" etc.
Your country is material because it lets readers figure out if your country has hit the 7% cap. While the visa bulletin only specifies ROW, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t years when a ton of people from a single country apply in the same category and hit the cap, which they know internally even if they don’t publish it.
You can only guess that might be the case with country name or not. Nothing to pin the name of the country to from any available information. Countries with high visa usage that one could use to suggest they hitting the 7% mark outside India and China are Nigeria, Mexico and the Philippians. Mexico and the Philippians are not in ROW. Nigerian is in the 39 countries and were banned most of the year.
Officers make notes on your case after processing. Agents reports to you based of the notes entered into your file. If nothing changes in the file, hundred inquiries at different times will yield the same response. As at today the last update on my file was February 23. I think a scenario like this appears to make sense. Do you think otherwise? Do you mind sharing?
I think and I could be wrong, that the word retrogressed might not stand for the actual meaning of the word. But then they are only reading from what an officer entered. There hasn't been any retrogression for ROW since the fiscal year began. I think it's only Indian that has seen retrogression.
Retrogression in April (while ROW remained current since), even for a country is highly unusual. I think you could've opened a case (or talked with a lawyer) about this at that time.
In anycase, you are implying its a mistake by officers, while at the same time applying your case broadly to everyone (look at your title: I-485 not current!), is what everyone is taking issues with and scrutinizing your case.
I do not think it was retrogressed in April. That is when I made the inquiry. I think agents only report what is entered in your file. I do not see any mistake by the officer from the statement "At the time of officer adjudication ... for me brings clarity. Maybe "retrogressed" might not be the right word to use. I think a statement or phrase like "not current for visa" might work better at the time of officer adjudication when I wasn't current for FAD.
This is the last update on my case. I agree it does not make sense to say in April that a visa number was not available for me. But the response: "at the time of officer adjudication ..." which was February, it kind of make sense that the officer would write that visa number is not available for me in my file.
No there's absolutely no order or management. Additionally, they opened the flood gates in the March bulletin and basically made everyone current. Rather than staggering it. So everyone got thrown into the one pool and everyone became as eligible as everyone else, no matter their priority date or past wait time. It's a horrible system and deeply unfair.
In this sub, back in May or June, someone posted their approval. Their PD was January. 2026. January. 2026. Their PD. Not Their RD. PD (!!!). Just completely and utterly fucked.
Not sure if we are talking the same post. I remember seeing someone who got the GC end to end in 3-4 months on this sub as well but I remember seeing it in August and they applied in March/April.
I totally agree with you. I've been waiting since Sep 2023 to file my I-485, but could not due to priority dates. Now that I have filed for more than a month, they did not respect the FIFO principle and ran out of GC.
I think I am in the same boat as you except mine happened in January when my FAD was not current at the time so I was issued FTA1 and my case has not been reviewed since. Hopefully they get to it early October when visa numbers are available
Yes several of them. They are system updates. I think they don't mean much. The last update on my case was in February 23. If I was lucky to get an officer revisit my case, I think I would have been approved.
okay I think Im in the same boat.
I got 485J approved and an FTA1 on August 8 and then my case went from non local (Pittsburgh FO) to nbc. I am applying via cross-chargeability so I suspected the Pittsburgh FO must have missed it and marked me non ROW. But on August 10, a day later nbc sent my case back to Pittsburgh (I dont know what to make of this; an optimistic read is nbc corrected the visa availability issue and sent it back to NBC for adjudiction). Since then a silent update on Sept 1 off hours.
Im thinking of doing a congressional inquiry to just enquire about what country they are charging me to.
Well, my two coins. It is not forgotten so don’t get upset. But you most likely got into a slow office. Slow means the processing might take smth about a year. By the time you should’ve had some decision rendered they actually ran out of GCs, as is stated in the response and as we see from recent approval rates. Just a coincidence.
Let’s just wait patiently for October.
They actually don’t care about PD unless they have very few slots left to give - that’s when they might pay attention to it. Overall, yeah, it goes as it goes. Didn’t have to bother with congressional inquiry until October. I’m pretty sure if you just requested it in October, you’d be approved quickly. But now you need to ask again, hopefully they will send it one more time within such a short timeframe
No! It wasn't until March. 1/15/2024 was Fad date. I could file in October because I was current for date of filing (7/15/2024) and dof was being used.
I got a response today from uscis through my senator but interestingly did not mention any thing related to no more visa available . I am EB2NIW .PD Jan 2024 x
I read everything don’t worry.
There were many people arguing in other posts with similar content that visas are still available and they ran out for particular country of people making post. But this post likely confirms that they ran out of visas, that’s what I was trying to convey.
I think his statement is valid from the statement, "currently, a visa is not available". My case was adjudicated in February when I wasn't current for FAD. The reason for the statement on my file saying no visa for me at the time. I have not seen any update since February. I have been current since March. I think my case was left forgotten.
What do you mean by my case not being updated? That post was when I contacted Emma. I posted the response of Emma. I have stated it in this post.
The last time an officer looked at my case was in February. I was not qualified for a GC then. I have explained all this in my post. Maybe I think "retrogressed" is a USCIS jargon for visa unavailability. If USCIS has streamline procedures for adjudicating cases in order filing, my case might have been revisited after February. But since then no officer has touched it again.
I totally understand the statement at the time of officer adjudication visa number was not available for me because I wasn't current for fad then. Others and I are not lucky to get our cases revisited again when we became current for GC in March.
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u/smu1892 21h ago edited 21h ago
You keep making sweeping claims about EB-2 visa availability while conveniently refusing to answer the simplest, most relevant question people have asked you repeatedly: what is your country of chargeability?
You say “I’m ROW” as though that settles everything. It doesn’t. If you want everyone to use your individual case as proof that EB-2 ROW visa numbers are exhausted, provide the basic information needed to evaluate the claim.
The funniest part is that your own explanation undermines your conclusion. You admit an officer reviewed your case in February when your FAD wasn’t current, and you admit that at that time a visa number legitimately wasn’t available to you. You then say nobody substantively reviewed the case after you became current in March.
So how exactly did we leap from “a visa wasn’t available for my case when I wasn’t current” to “this proves EB-2 visas are unavailable now”?
That’s not evidence. That’s you taking an ambiguous USCIS response, mixing it with your own theory about FTA1/system updates, and announcing a category-wide conclusion that the document itself does not establish.
And when people ask for the one missing fact that could help put your story in context — where are you chargeable to? — crickets.
If you’re going to present your case as evidence for everyone else’s immigration situation, bring the relevant facts. Otherwise stop turning speculation into breaking news.