Q: Which report should I use, the Pending Employment-Based Form I-485 Report or the country-specific reports?

A: All applicants for an employment-based green card may use the pending Form I-485 report to determine their place in line for a visa.  Because certain countries experience higher demand than others, applicants in these “oversubscribed” countries may move forward in line more slowly than applicants in countries experiencing less demand.  In other words, in order to obtain a visa, applicants in oversubscribed countries may need to have earlier priority dates than applicants in countries experiencing less demand.  Applicants in oversubscribed countries may therefore want to also refer to the report for their specific country of chargeability to determine where they stand in line with other applicants from that country.  

Q: What information do I need to have before using the pending Form I-485 inventory reports?

A: You need to know your priority date and your preference category to use the pending Form I-485 inventory reports.  For more information on priority dates and preference categories, see the “Visa Availability & Priority Dates” and “Green Card Eligibility” links to the right.

Q: How do I read the pending I-485 inventory reports?

A: First, select the link to the report you want to view. The report will appear and you will see a series of charts, one for each preference category.  You will see that each chart has different numbers for each month and year.   These numbers show how many green card applicants have priority dates in that month and year.  To figure out how many applicants have earlier priority dates, add all the numbers from all the cells that correspond to earlier months.

Q:  Why were there pending cases listed with priority dates after August 2007 when the Visa  Bulletin priority dates was never beyond August 2007?

A:  We have reviewed the source data for the inventory and have determined that a number of errors contributed to the appearance of cases with a 2008 or 2009 priority date in countries and preferences for which the priority date has not advanced beyond 2007 in the DOS Visa Bulletin.  First, several of these cases had more than one approved I-140, and, rather than list the case by the earlier priority date, we erroneously listed the case by the later priority date.  Several more cases were cross-chargeable to a non-retrogressed country but were listed under the retrogressed country.  Finally, a handful of cases involved simple data-entry errors.