THE PROBLEM

For the past decade, the US employment-based immigrant visa allotment has been undersubscribed.  Recent improvements at the CIS have led to unintended consequences: full subscription of the employment-based immigrant visa rolls.  When full subscription is reached, US law compels the Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) and the Department of State (DOS) to establish visa quotas, which create waiting list “queues.”  These queues can delay immigrant visa (a.k.a. Permanent Residency or Green Card) cases by several years.  This phenomenon is known as retrogression.

These queues are based on the skill of the worker and the worker’s country of nationality.  Traditionally, Filipino and Indian workers have been the hardest hit.  Starting in January 2005, it is expected that the queue for Filipino and Indian-national EB3 workers (e.g. registered nurses and most physical therapists) will retrogress several years.  Registered Nurses will likely be hardest hit by the retrogression phenomenon because they have no nonimmigrant visa solution.