Employment Visa Processing Moves Up

Over the past months, US business establishments and private households who wish to hire skilled and domestic Filipino workers have been in a bind over the retrogression of the third-preference employment based visas.

Third preference employment visas are allocated to skilled workers, professionals and other workers. Skilled workers include accountants, teachers, engineers, architects, computer professionals, medical technologists, occupational therapists. The “other workers” under this category include domestic workers such as nannies, housekeepers, adult companions, etc.

The retrogression meant that the green card applications of 3 rd preference visa applicants could run into significant delays.

The State Department’s March 2006 Visa Bulletin brings some good news for now.

The cut-off date for the Philippines 3 rd preference (skilled workers and professionals) has moved to May 1, 2001. This is a positive indication that visa processing has moved from the bottleneck month of April, 2001. The cut-off date of the other worker category is October 1, 2001.

It will be recalled that thousands of labor certification applications were filed in April 2001 to avail of the benefits of Section 245 (i) creating tremendous backlogs that ran up to 4 or even 5 years in New York and New Jersey alone.

Although the backlog elimination centers of the Department of Labor (DOL) are hard at work with these labor certification applications over the past several months, the processing of a considerable number of the Section 245 (i) filings have not been completed.

To avoid a situation where huge visa numbers would be available toward the end of the year without enough time to use them, the State Department decided to push the cut-off date forward and make these visa numbers available particularly for China, India and the Philippines.

Should the DOL complete the processing of the labor certification applications and I-140 petitions for alien workers are filed, the State Department may have to retrogress and delays may be expected.

The huge labor certification backlog is showing signs of easing up. The DOL has been weeding out cases by requiring sponsors to respond to the 45-day “Selection of Continuation Option Letter.” This enables the DOL to determine whether a pending case will be withdrawn or processed further.

My office has received a considerable number of such option letters and even approvals. With labor certifications approved, the sponsor can move on to petitioning the alien worker with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. And if the priority date of those foreign workers is earlier than the cut-off date indicated on the Visa Bulletin, they should immediately file their immigrant visa applications or their adjustment of status applications if they are in the US.