Immigration News Alert: February Visa Bulletin Highlights!

The Visa Bulletin summarizes the availability of immigrant visas for the coming month. It distills the data as to whether the family and employment-based categories are current or backlogged in a given month. DOS and USCIS collaborate monthly to publish the Visa Bulletin. Within each category, the Visa Bulletin provides a Final Action Chart reflecting priority dates considered current and available and a Dates for Filing Chart reflecting priority dates anticipated to become current during the fiscal year.

USCIS indicated that for February 2024, filers should use the Dates for Filing Chart for both family and employment-based cases, which will remain the same in February 2024 as they were for January 2024. Anyone who was eligible to file an adjustment of status application based on the January 2024 visa bulletin should continue to be eligible in February.

Final Action changes:

Family based- F-2A for spouses and children of permanent residents moves about three months to February 8, 2020.

Employment based: EB-2 Worldwide moves 14 days to November 15, 2022.
EB-3 worldwide moves one month to September 1 2022.
EB-4 Religious Worker Category set to sunset is now extended.

This category that was set to sunset, due to a Continuing Resolution has now been extended through March 8, 2024.  Now that the non-minister special immigration program has been extended, the category will resume processing under the same dates as the rest of the EB-4 Special Immigrant category, which is now at September 1, 2019.

This category includes Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions.

Syrian TPS Redesignated:

DHS is extending the designation of Syria for Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for 18 months beginning on April 1, 2024 and ending on September 30, 2025.

This allows existing beneficiaries to re-register and extend their status.  It also allows Syrian nationals who have been residing in the United States since January 25, 2024 to apply for TPS for the first time.