The Department of State (DOS) recently gazed into its crystal ball and made some predictions. These predictions are helpful, but also give the reader a sense of the lack of precision inherent in such an unwieldy system. The overwhelming conclusion that can be drawn from their gazing is that demand for immigrant visa numbers has decreased in recent months.

While the DOS is perplexed about the lack of demand, HLG offers rationales:

1. The March/April 2001 demand was always pyrrhic since so many of those cases do not actually qualify for the petitioned class.

2. The CIS' excellent job at eliminating its Adjustment of Status backlog has "wrung out" many cases that had artificially inflated demand in 2004-5.

3. Between the shrunken H-1 cap, the stumbled initiation of the PERM program and the initiation of the backlog reduction system, fewer Labor Certifications have been approved.

The DOS' predictions:

"Worldwide: Based on the current level of number use in the Employment First and Second preference categories there will be no need to impose a cut-off date for the categories. While the First preference number use is relatively close to my target, the Second preference is significantly below my target which doesn't make a lot of sense.
Third: I had been concerned that the amount of 245(i) filings during March/April 2001 would result in a large concentration of demand, and limit movement of the cut-off date. So far this has not been the case, and it may be that such cases (if they exist in large numbers) are still in the DOL backlog.

China and India: The same lack of demand comments apply to these First and Second preference cut-offs. This has resulted in the rapid advancement of the China and India cut-offs, which I expect to continue for the next several months.

China Third - Should stay at the Worldwide date.

India - This cut-off should continue to move, but such movement may become more limited. "