Indian professionals waiting for US employment-based green cards were dealt a fresh dose of uncertainty on 21 July when the US State Department’s August 2026 Visa Bulletin warned that the EB-1 quota for India could run out before the end of the US fiscal year on 30 September. The bulletin keeps India’s EB-1 Final Action Date frozen at 15 October 2022 but adds an explicit caveat: if heavy demand continues, the category may become “unavailable” at any point in the next few weeks. For thousands of Indian executives and researchers already marooned in multi-year queues, an “unavailable” designation would halt immigrant-visa issuance and block adjustment-of-status filings until the new quota opens on 1 October. The warning underscores how rapidly visa numbers are being consumed this year. The EB-2 category for India is already unavailable, and EB-3 dates remain stuck at 1 January 2014. Immigration attorneys report a surge of Indian applicants rushing to file in EB-1 after layoffs in the tech sector forced many to upgrade their petitions. That surge, coupled with the back-to-back retrogressions earlier in the year, is exhausting the remaining supply. For India-based multinationals and US employers alike, the bulletin complicates workforce planning. Companies that expected to move senior Indian managers to the United States under EB-1 may now have to delay transfers or explore L-1A routes instead. Foreign nationals already in the US should monitor USCIS filing charts: if EB-1 becomes unavailable mid-month, the agency will stop accepting I-485 applications even for candidates whose priority dates are current today. Practically, employers should: 1) fast-track any ready EB-1 filings before the category closes; 2) counsel assignees on fall-back non-immigrant options; and 3) prepare for further retrogression in early FY-2027. The episode highlights the chronic supply-demand mismatch in the green-card system for India and adds urgency to legislative proposals to eliminate per-country caps.
Source: Business Standard
