The United States Department of State (DOS) has announced the exhaustion of all available immigrant visas in the Employment-Based First Preference (EB-1) category for the 2024 fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024. DOS and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced earlier this month a similar exhaustion in the Professional and Skilled Worker category (EB-3), the Unskilled or Other Workers (EW) category and the EB-5 category. The EB-1 category comprises petitions filed for Aliens of Extraordinary Ability, Outstanding Professors and Researchers, and Multinational Executives and Managers. All available EB-1 immigrant visas for FY 2024 have now been used. This means that United States embassies and consulates cannot issue any more EB-1 immigrant visas until the 2025 fiscal year begins on October 1, 2024. USCIS also cannot approve any more adjustment of status (AOS) applications based on EB-1 petitions until October 1, regardless of the applicant’s priority date. Based on the exhaustion of other employment-based categories, it is also probable that the FY 2024 immigrant visas for the EB-2 and EB-4 categories will be exhausted and become temporarily unavailable until before October 1, 2024.

Although no more AOS applications based on EB-1 petitions may be approved by USCIS until October 1, the agency should continue accepting AOS applications for the rest of August and September, provided that the applicant’s priority date is current under the cut-off dates specified in the August and September Visa Bulletins. These Bulletins and discussions of them are available in the Alerts that we distributed on July 10, 2024 and August 8, 2024

Any AOS applicants whose applications are based on EB-1 petitions that have been scheduled to attend an AOS interview at a local USCIS office should attend the interview. The interviewing officer can conduct the interview and, if the officer finds the application approvable, inform the applicant that the application has been provisionally approved, but that permanent resident status cannot be granted until October 1 at the earliest.

T&S Takeaway

The exhaustion of all immigrant visa numbers for the EB-1 classification is a surprising development highlights the unsatisfactory nature of the current immigrant visa quotas or limits, which were set in 1990 and have not been increased since. A new quota of immigrant visas will be available on October 1, 2024, so any delays in AOS adjudication stemming from the exhaustion of the FY2024 quota will be minimal. T&S will continue to closely monitor all developments in this regard, including the monthly issuance of Visa Bulletins by the DOS, and will provide further updates periodically.