USCIS Temporarily Suspends Adjudication of I-485s

By William L. Coffman

USCIS announced today that it will:

"suspend final adjudication of employment-based Form I-485 applications... because the Department of State reports that the statutory cap has been reached for the employment-based preference categories for fiscal year (FY) 2015."

However, this is not something to panic about.

As my colleague Michele Frangella wrote about in August, the end of the government's fiscal year is September 30th. As of today, all available employment-based green cards have been used up so there are no more green card numbers for USCIS to access to approve cases for the next 6 days.  Once the new fiscal year starts on October 1st, they will again have green card numbers officially available. It doesn’t impact eligibility to continue to file I-485 applications based on Visa Bulletin guidance, including those cases newly eligible to file October 1st.

 

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William L. Coffman

Special Counsel

William L. Coffman focuses on immigration and nationality law at Mintz. He represents clients on immigration matters before the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Labor, and US and foreign consulates.