Immigrant Visa Bulletin for January 2016

Alexander J. Segal's picture
Submitted by Alexander J. Segal on December 15, 2015 - 12:48am

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services released the January 2016 Visa Bulletin for adjustment of status applicants.1

The Visa Bulletin shows when a person who is the beneficiary of an approved immigrant visa petition may file for an immigrant visa. It includes filing dates for family-sponsored and employment-based immigrant visa preference categories.

An alien may file for an immigrant visa once his or her priority date is before the filing date listed on the appropriate chart. The priority date is generally the date on which the alien's sponsor (either a family member or an employer, except in self-petitioning cases) filed the immigrant visa petition on his or her behalf. If labor certification required for an alien who was the beneficiary of an employment-based immigrant visa petition, the date that the labor certification was accepted for processing serves as the priority date.

Please note that “C” stands for “current,” and means that an alien in the given category with an approved immigrant visa petition is eligible to file for an immigrant visa in January of 2016 regardless of his or her priority date.

Dates for Filing Family-Sponsored Adjustment of Status Applications (January 2016)

Family-
Sponsored		 All Chargeability
Areas Except
Those Listed		 CHINA-
mainland
born		 INDIA MEXICO PHILIPPINES
F1 01OCT09 01OCT09 01OCT09 01APR95 01SEP05
F2A 15JUN15 15JUN15 15JUN15 15JUN15 15JUN15
F2B 15DEC10 15DEC10 15DEC10 01APR96 01MAY05
F3 01AUG05 01AUG05 01AUG05 01MAY95 01AUG95
F4 01MAY04 01MAY04 01MAY04 01JUN98 01JAN93

Application Final Action Dates For Employment-Based Preference Cases (January 2016)

Employment- Based All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed CHINA — mainland born INDIA MEXICO PHILIPPINES
1st C C C C C
2nd C 01FEB12 01FEB08 C C
3rd 01OCT15 01JUL12 15MAY04 01OCT15 01NOV07
Other workers 01OCT15 01DEC06 15MAY04 01OCT15 01NOV07
4th C C C C C
Certain Religious Workers C C C C C
5th
Non-Regional
Center
(C5 and T5)		 C 08JAN14 C C C
5th
Regional
Center
(I5 and R5)		 C 08JAN14 C C C

We have included the final action dates for “Certain Religions Workers” and “5th Regional Center (I5 and R5)” that will be effective once the congressional omnibus bill is signed into law. These two programs had been slated to expire [see blog] before Congress agreed to fund [see blog] them until September 30, 2016.

The USCIS news release contains a chart that provides a simple overview of the adjustment of status process. I have reproduced the chart below for your convenience:

[Click image to view full size]

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  1. USCIS, “When to File Your Adjustment of Status Application for Family-Sponsored or Employment-Based Preference Visas: January 2016, USCIS, (Dec. 11, 2015), available at http://www.uscis.gov/visabulletin-jan-16 [link]
Picture: 
Immigrant Visa Bulletin for January 2016