重要的绿卡信息：visa bulletin for October 2011

The visa bulletin, of the U.S. Department of State 美国国务院, determines when you are able to receive your green card.    This bulletin is issued each month.  The bulletin for October 2011 is here: http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5560.html

The visa bulletin for a particular month tells you, for each "preference category" of green card, who is able to receive their green cards that month.  I will give you the major employment preference categories for China, then explain the information to you.

The relevant "cutoff dates" for China, from the October 2011 bulletin, for the main employment preference categories, are as follows:

Employment first preference (EB-1): current
Employment second preference (EB-2): July 15, 2007
Employment third preference (EB-3): August 8, 2004

I will explain these dates to you.  Lol when I was in law school, and took a class on business immigration, I myself did not immediately understand it.

Anyone from China who files a green card petition in the EB-1 category need not wait for a visa, because there is no backlog, 就是，没有移民签证、绿卡的积压.  That is, there is not a large stack of petitions from years ago waiting to be processed.  As soon as you file, a visa is available for you.  For this reason, the bulletin says, instead of date, the word "current."

Anyone from China who files a petition in the EB-2 category most likely will have to wait to get a visa, because there IS a backlog.  In fact, the backlog is such that in October 2011, the only people who can get EB-2 green cards are those with a priority date of July 15, 2007 or earlier.  The date that is listed in the bulletin is the "cutoff date" for that particular preference.  In other words, the only people in a preference category, from a given area who can get a green card are those people with a priority date that is the same as the cutoff date, or earlier than the cutoff date.

Anyone from China who files a petition in the EB-3 category also most likely will have to wait.  In October 2011, the only people who can get EB-3 green cards are those with a priority date of August 8, 2004 or earlier.  In other words, the EB-3 cutoff date for the October 2011 bulletin is August 8, 2004.

To see this information and these dates for yourself, go to the web page above.  Then scroll down until you see the section labeled "employment-based preferences."  Then scroll down further until you see the table of dates.  The dates for China are in the third column from the left.

I hope this information helps you.  I am sorry that the visas can take so long, and that the process is so slow.