State Department Visa Bulletin Released for September 2009

The State Department released the monthly visa bulletin today: http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_4558.html   A rare piece of good news, this month’s visa bulletin announces that the in the employment based second preference (workers with either a Master’s degree or a Bachelor’s degree and five years of experience) born in China and India (the most backlogged countries) can apply for permanent residence if their priority date was established in January of 2005.  This is a significant improvement from July and August, when the current priority dates for these individuals was January 2000 and October 20003, respectively.  Unfortunately, the third preference category for all foreign nationals remains unavailable.  It will be interesting to watch the visa bulletin next month at the start of the government fiscal year to determine if the ominous predictions of a ten year wait for an employment based priority date becomes a reality.