The Visa Bulletin - Part 1

If you're waiting for a visa, you may have heard of the "Visa Bulletin." While not a physical bulletin board, it is a notice published by the State Department which summarizes the availability of immigrant numbers during each month. Available at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin.html, this provides a lot of information on family sponsored immigration visas, employment visas, and even diversity visas.

If you check your category and see a number, that is where the government is at, either with visas being available or working on issuing the visas. If you see a "C" then the section is "current" and a visa is immediately available.

There are two things to know when reviewing whether or not a visa is available for you: the final action date and dates of filing. Although there might be visas available, the National Visa Center may not be working on cases. I have seen this in a family sponsored case where the final action date was current ("C") but yet the National Visa Center was not yet working on that specific type of case. For instance, in the December 2021 visa bulletin, a lawful permanent resident (in this example, from Jamaica) who has filed for their spouse will have a "current" visa. However, the Department of State was only working on cases with dates of filing of June 1, 2021 or earlier.

When you review the visa bulletin, always check both sections to determine if you can start submitting documents to the NVC.