Visa Bulletin May 2026 Update Explained | Retrogression Risk, Priority Dates & CSPA Rules

[0:00]Today, I'm going to discuss the visa bulletin updates of May 2026 and how it affects you and things that you need to know if you're doing a family-based case or if you're doing an employment-based case. especially if you have family members dependent that part of the case, you need to be aware of this and the potential for regression and a lot more. I'm immigration John Kovi, I help people get green cards and citizenship later on at the JQK immigration Law firm. If you want to download one of our guides, go to JQK Law dot com, fill out our contact us page and let us know. About your information, if it's citizenship or marriage green card, we'll send you to the right place to get the information that you need. But let's get started. So the visa bulletin was updated and there's a lot of good news because it went forward. The visa bulletin is a line that exists for family and employment based cases, diversity visa lottery as well. That says who can get green cards at any time, because in most green card cases, preference categories, there's a limited number of green card or immigrant visas available each year. So because of that, a line builds up where there's more demand than there's actually available each year. And this demand is shown in the preference category charts, when you look up the visa bulletin, just type in visa bulletin on Google, the first website, the Department of State usually it, and every month this gets updated. depending on their estimates of how many green cards were used in that, you know, fiscal year and not to keep it moving forward, the good news is it moved up. Now, what you'll notice is there's two charts for each category. So for employment base for example, there's a final action date and a date of filing. Final action date is the date that they could actually approve the green card, and your priority date there is based on the date that your case was started. For example, when your I-140 was submitted for an E B 1 A or potentially your perm application was started, if you're doing E B 2 or E B 3 or something like that. And so if it shows that the chart dates have moved forward past the date of your priority date, that means they can approve the case. But there's also a date of filing chart, which is the second one, and that says when you can actually submit paperwork in preparation for the final action date. And the way the government does it's actually confusing, President Obama originally made this second chart, so if you're inside the United States, you can submit this early. adjustment of status or my 485, which gives you the ability to apply for a work permit, it gives you the ability to get advance parole, and also if you need to change jobs, potentially portability could apply for having a I 485 pending for six months and changing jobs. It gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility, that's why these charts are created, but after it created, they said, you know what, let's let's correct this a little bit. Each month USCIS will decide which charts to use, whether there's the final action date or a date of filing. So you always have to check which one it is, so that's the basic kind of background about the visa bullet and process I want to share with you. Uh, but what's important now is if you have the ability to do adjustment of status in the United States, for console processing it's whenever the national visa center contacts you with a welcome notice to be able to start the case. Unless it's way overdue, you should reach out to them and say, hey, we need to get this started, but if you're doing adjustment of status, for most cases, it's best to apply as soon as possible before some sort of regression happens or US changes its plans and wants to use the final action date. Now, uh, the ability the reality of this happening is very real because the reason why this line moved up so much is because of the travel bands. Particularly against those who are outside the United States, but essentially large chunks of the world are not able to get green cards, which means for those who are able to, it fast forward the timeline a lot, which shows on these charts. Uh, but the reality is these travel bands may go away, there might be lawsuits, there may be negotiations with these different countries where big numbers of new green card applicants could get in the system. And this would cause what's called regression, the green card category then goes back in time. So it's very important that if you have the ability to get it and the case is appropriate, it's not for everybody, but most people, it is appropriate, but you'd have to review your case on a one-on-one basis, see if there's some issue that prevents you from doing that or makes it wiser not to apply. But in those kind of cases, better to file for adjustment of status for you and family members, um, to get yourself in line, to at least get the work permit, etcetera, all the stuff we talked about earlier, and also for children to get their case started. Uh, but that's the big picture there, do it before regression happens and blocks you out. But then the second issue that comes up is really for dependents, um, the child status protection acts, something you have to be familiar with if you have children are 21 who are part of your case. If they go above the age of 21, they get cut out of your case, but they'll be able to use this calculation for the child status protection act, which I guess we won't go too much detail here. I have different videos on YouTube you can check out, just check out JQK Law Child Status Protection Act, but essentially the time your case is pending for the I 140 or the I 130 to be approved. uh potentially you could de track or take down subtract uh that time from the child's age and they might keep you under 21, but the requirement is is based on the child's age when the case became current on the final action date, not a date of filing. So it's a complicated calculation, we got to check the visa charts, we got to calculate how much time the case is pending, what their date of birth is on any given time and see if it files. But one of the things you do to lock in the age is by filing for adjustment of status, so you should do that as soon as possible, so that's at least in the system. And one other thing that pops up is you might have children who are traveling, going to school overseas or coming back and forth on H4 and L2 visa. Um, having that in and having those visas really good, but then finally for advanced parole, if you could stay here long enough or get expedited to have that as a backup plan, so if the case for example, we have situations where uh, you know, the mom or dad is a main green card holder. They're here on H1B, and the child's on H4 and the traveling back and forth when they're outside the country, for example, they're visiting India, the mom, who's the primary applicant gets adjustment of status approved, the child's outside. Because the adjustment of status approved, the H1B is no longer valid, and the child all of a sudden gets locked out because the H4 gets invalidated, they have to go through console processing, which requires filing from A824, takes a year or two to get that sent out, and in that meantime, they could be retro aggression. And that all of a sudden that case is stuck out for many years, I have a case right now I'm doing, which uh, the mom was approved four years ago and just now they're able to do uh console processing because it's current. It's a disaster, the attorney should have filed the case better, either guided them to have the child be here with the H4 to finish it off, or follow the I824 sooner, so that it would work its way through the system sooner. They also may typos on the I824, which caused problems, so it's a huge disaster. That's why I really want you to avoid that, have the children family here together, but I just had a consultation with the person whose child had to go to school overseas, so I'm like, okay, try to have them come back and forth as much as possible on the H4. But when they're here, especially during the summer, when they're going to have longer trip, uh, file for advanced parole, request an expedite, congressional involved, and if they don't get the advanced parole approved in time, then uh, soon before leaving for school, make an emergency advanced pro request with the local USCIS office to help him potentially get it to be able to leave for school and then come back to the advanced parole. That way their adjustment of status won't get canceled if the parent gets the green card and then their H4 is canceled, at least they have the advanced pro come back and forth. So there's a lot of these strategies that you have to think about ahead of time to make sure things are going right, and be wary of the regression, be wary of losing your place in line, be wary of the kids abandoning the case accidentally from being outside. There's a lot going on there, you have to be mindful of. If you want to schedule a private consultation, please go to our website JQ Law dot com slash contact, fill in a little bit of your information there so we know what kind of case you have, and we can schedule a private consultation, talk with you and your family and discuss what is the appropriate path for you for success. Again, I'm immigration lawyer John Kovi, thank you so much for watching this and feel free to click on the links below to get other videos about these topics or do a search on our YouTube page and get a lot more.