**NEW Insights** into pending USCIS inventory numbers - Is it Good or Bad?

Hello friends, Mandar here. I'm back with another video. Today we have a lot of numbers from USCIS.

This is the inventory data that they usually provide after every quarter. Now we have until the Q4 of 2025 which is September of 2025. All the data available until then and we are going to take a look at it.

So there are a lot of different charts and I'm going to show you some important stuff to look at such as what is the percentage of approval and percentage of denial that will provide you an insight into what is going on and at the end of the session we'll also talk to immigration attorney regarding their thoughts on what you should do what are the things that you should pay attention to when you're applying for 485. So a lot of insightful content in this video watch this video until end and let's get started. If you are here for the first time, welcome.

My name is Bandhar and I make immigration and lifestyle related videos for US and Canada. I'm not an immigration lawyer. So, anything that I say on this video or on my channel is for information purpose only and for your specific immigration needs.

Before you take any action, you should hire a competent immigration lawyer. Check out the links in the description because those are affiliate links. And if you find anything interesting, that will also help the channel.

And while you are down there, don't forget to hit the like button so that more and more people will view this content and that will also encourage me to make more videos. So let's jump into the first chart of today which is this form 140. So I40 immigrant petition for alien workers.

So now if you look at this there are different tabs at the bottom all countries India, China, Philippines, Brazil and Vietnam. So we are going to focus our attention onto India tab for today and then in the subsequent video I will make sure that I cover the other tabs as well. So if you look at this India tab first of all on the left hand side you have the petitions by employment preference.

So if you can see the total number of petitions which is approved, denied or pending. So they have also provided the pending number and also on the left hand side you have EB1, EB2 and EB3. Within EB1 they have also split the numbers by EB1 A, E1 B and EB1 C which is great.

that will put give us some insights into how are these numbers distributed based on the demand. Okay. So let's look at this at the top.

You can see all the numbers since 2014 to 2025. So if you look at this year the numbers are usually consistent throughout the EB petitions but as you can see they have consistently increased and now they're at 68,000 for the fiscal year 2025. And how are they distributed?

So basically if you look at the overall percentage of approval it is almost over 90%. So and if you if you look at the percentage of denial it is almost like 7%. So what I'm doing is I'm not I'm not counting the pending applicants.

I'm only doing the addition of the approved and denied. So that that will give us the number and comparative analysis of what is the ratio between denied and approved. So that way if you look at it it's only 7% that are denied but almost 93% or 90 above 90% that are approved overall at a employment bas situation.

Now as we keep going down let's look at EB1 approved. Now EB1 approved the total number of EB1s for U 2025 were 14,250 which is what I was saying how come they received 14,000 green cards all of a sudden that is a different story but you can see here there were 14,000 green cards for EB1 processed in 2025. Okay so now how many were approved out of them?

6,993. How many were denied? 1,474 and 5 5,783 are still pending.

So basically what it what it means is if I if I total these these two denied and approved which comes to 8467 which is almost about 17. 4% denial rate which is significantly higher than previous number of years. So as you can see in the previous number of years the visa numbers that were approved were 9,000 and out of those only 8,000.

So it was well less than uh 10%. I would say 6 to 7 or maybe 8%. Even if you go one year back there were 10,000 uh almost 11,000 approvals and compared to that only 855 denials which is almost like 7 or 8%.

Whereas in 2025 as you can see the rate of denial has increased significantly. I would say it has increased more than twice. So almost 17 to 18% of visas in EB1 are being denied.

Now let's keep going because EB2 and EB3 denial rates are not that bad. They are still the same almost about the same as you can see if you go few years back or at least last 3 years or last two years they have been consistent. So they they are under 7% of denial rate.

Uh whereas uh for EB3 it's even less. So EB3 is the most successful petition if you ask me because less than 1% of the petitions in EB3 are denied. Uh almost all of them 99% of the EB3 petitions are approved.

So which tells you how the approval rate kind of increases going from EB3 to EB2, EB2 to EB1. EB1 has a significantly higher uh denial rate right now. So that is that is the insight that we get from this chart.

Now let's go to the another chart. Now in this chart what I see is they have given form I140 petitions for alien workers by fiscal year quarter Q1 to Q4 for 2025. So if you look at the quarter 4 and there is also the total at the in the back.

Uh if we look at say EB1 okay EB1 totals. So EB1 totals the entire application the total number of pending applications you can see these this split by quarter. So quarterly if I look at it how many were received were 12,000.

So 12,000 if they were received per quarter the total number of applicants in EB1 category were 51,000 whereas in EB2 there were 116,000 and EB3 there were 77,000. So highest number of petitions are in EB2 as expected. But this kind of just gives you a number and how many are pending.

So if you if you look at how many are pending in EB1, there are 30 34,000 pending cases from 2025 about 85,000 cases. This is not the priority data I'm talking about. This is the pending petitions I40 pending petitions and for for EB3 it's 61,000.

Now I would go to another chart which is even more important and it's this inventory data. Okay. So EB1 inventory data and EB2 inventory data.

Now I have been doing these comparative analysis and now what I want to show you in this chart is for EB1 preference category how many are available and how many are awaiting the visa numbers. So that is important to look what they have done is as usual they have split every year by um each month and they go back 2016 actually. Now what I really want to look at is how many are pending petitions because all of these numbers have already got their green cards.

So basically they have their number availability. Now these are the numbers that are still pending in the year 2023. Now if you look at the dates that became current all of a sudden in in uh January visa bulletin for EB1 those came from February 2022 to all the way to March 2023.

So if you look at how many visas they all of a sudden found almost 13,446 visa numbers they must have found somewhere to make all these dates current in final action chart. Now how many are still pending in 2020 uh 2023 there are about uh 3,000 visa numbers still pending. That gives you an indication of how they were able to progress the dates for EB1 and how many visa numbers they prospectively assumed that they are going to get from these country bands for 75 countries.

So again I'm telling you that this is still speculative. They don't have these visa numbers in hand but they are making these speculations that these are the visa numbers that are going to be spilled over or going to be available because from these 75 countries and that's the reason they are progressing these dates so fast to March of 2023. Now let's look at EB2.

Okay, EB2 pending inventory. Again, if I if I assume the same thing. So if you look at 2013, all these people people have already have their visa numbers about about 3,000.

Now if you look at 2013 pending visa numbers, so people who still don't have a visa number available, there are still 6,800 in the year 2013. So if your priority date is 2013, there are still 6,800 or 6,900 people who are still awaiting a visa number from priority date 2013. Okay, so this is for EB2 and what is for uh year 2014.

Now if you go to year 2014, there are almost 16,900 almost 17,000 people in EB2 in 2014 priority with 2014 priority date. They need to come up with almost 17,000 to clear the backlog. 17,000 plus 6,000 which is almost 23,000 visa numbers to clear the backlog to get to end of 2014.

Okay, so that's let's set that aside. Now let's look at EB3 as well. So EB3 is a little bit better position because in 2013 there are only about,00 people awaiting visa numbers for 2014 however there are about so about 13,000.

So EB3 has way less people. Almost half the people half the number of people that are in EB2 are waiting in EB3. This data is important because this kind of gives you a perspective of how many visa numbers and how many spillovers there need to be in order for all of these people waiting for visa numbers to get the visa numbers and clear all this backlog.

So although USCIS has progressed the date until January of 2015, my guess is this is all speculative. These numbers show a different story. There are a lot of people who are still awaiting visa numbers and USCIS has just allowed many people to just submit their 485 petitions so that they can wait in anticipating that there will be spillovers and these many number of visa numbers becoming available so that they can give out these green cards.

Now here is the report from manifesla that says 2026 EB1A and NIW trends and outlook approval rates are shifting total approvals are rising. What their key findings are are more people are applying for EB1A and EB2 NIW which which we already know that's not a surprise. More people are applying in EB1A and EB2 NIW which is not a surprise for us making competition for a green card even tougher.

Now while overall approval rates have dropped like we just saw especially for EB1 the approval rates have really dropped um the government is approving more EB1 cases than ever because because obviously there are more number of applicants. So they are actually end of the day approving more EB1 cases but the rate of denials has risen. So the competition has increased obviously if your EB1A or EB2 NW case is strong enough to file today adjudication trends give no compelling reasons to apply apply.

So you should if you qualify that if you qualify you should apply and then the fourth one is in the competitive environment waiting doesn't improve your odds it just gives the bar more time to rise. uh there is one more thing that I forgot to show you is how is the distribution of EB1 A, EB1 B and EB1 C. So if you come back to these numbers there is also the these rows 15 through 17 that show the distribution.

So if you look at this um in 2025 obviously you can see how EB1A numbers have risen from all the way from like 900 uh 1200 1300700 to all the way to 2700 in 2025. How do they compare with EB1B? EB1B is far less like 1100 compared to 2700 and EB1 C which is international's managers category are the maximum number of visas which is above 3,000 that way you can see that more than one/ird of visa numbers or about 40% of visa numbers go to EB1 C less than 33% go to A and about less than 20% go to EB1 B now what does this all mean to the dates progression I'm going to make a follow-up video on this so Stay tuned for that.

But for now, let's talk to the immigration attorney and get their perspective because it is also important and there are some important nuggets that you will get to hear from the attorney. So, let's watch them. Hi Gabriella, welcome back to the YouTube channel Wisdom Friends.

Uh hope you're doing well. >> Thank you for having me. >> Yeah.

So, today we will cover um some topics regarding the visa. the dates have progressed for EB1 uh significantly in the last 3 months and also for EB2 and EB3 in uh for EB2 especially in the final action chart as well as for uh EB2 and EB3 in the filing date chart. So which is which is great news for a lot of people who have been waiting for their visa numbers to be current uh in a long time.

So I just wanted to get your thoughts on uh this situation what how people should be prepared and so on. So that will be greatly beneficial to the audience. So uh my first question is what are your thoughts on this forward progress of visa bulletin for India um especially EB2 and EB3?

Well, let me start by saying that we know that nobody can predict how the visa bulletin will move forward, but there was a lot of conversation going on with immigration attorneys about two months ago or or 3 months ago. And this was expected to happen because remember all of the people that couldn't get their green card from the 75 country band list that are waiting abroad. So what's going to happen to all those unus cards, right?

Again, spill over. They get um used within the employment based categories. So that's I I you know that's why people believe that there has been um a movement with employment based categories especially for people who are born in India that have a backlog.

Now let's remember looking back at prior visa bulletins from years ago where situations like this have happened. It looks like this right a month opens up there is movement may maybe another month stays open um and then it shuts down right because USCIS especially March and April visa bulletin they will get thousands of applications for all the people whose priority date are current. So, in terms of a a strategy for your viewers, now it's a good opportunity to file for adjustment of status if they're current, not to wait and hope that it will remain open for May or June because we don't know that, right?

Like it could down, it could retrogress and people could lose the opportunity to apply for adjustment of status and a work permit. >> Yeah. No, that's a that's a good segue into my next question which was uh specifically centered around okay, what should people do?

So um how should people prepare for their 485 petition now that uh they have become eligible to apply for adjustment of status? So any tips uh that can speed up their process to apply for 485? >> First of all to make sure that their priority date is current.

If they're filing concurrently to make sure that they list that on their cover letter. if they're filing with a previously approved or pending I140 to make sure that you include a copy of that either approval notice or receipt notice and you highlight the priority date, right? Um, also a big one, make sure that all of the forms are the latest edition and I see this mistake happening all the time where people >> include forms that are outdated and then the whole package gets rejected and it's taking us about a month >> to reject this petition.

So imagine you file, you get your petition rejected and you notice this in like at the end of April, you don't have time to refile. >> Exactly. Exactly.

So they don't give you the second chance. They just outright reject it. >> They reject them.

And another thing that I've noticed that USCIS has been doing is that they have been releasing forms with a new addition and they don't tell people. >> Wow. So, always, always, always, literally the day that you're about to file, go to USCIS, >> search the name of the form, and then go to the tab that says edition and see which edition they're accepting.

Very important. Another one is not to open the medical exam. If you go get the medical exam from the from the physician, make sure that you mail that the envelope sealed and signed.

Do not open it. Um, another thing is also make sure that >> every page is included. This is another silly mistake that I've seen throughout my career where where people, you know, they're nervous, they're anxious, they they just print really fast and right before filing, they don't count the pages.

So, that's something that I do. I count the pages to see that every single page is included for the forms and also that every page that requires a signature has a signature because again if there is a page missing, if there is a signature missing, they will reject the entire application. And then the last tip is to make sure that they include one payment form per form, >> not to bundle the payments.

So for example, I'm applying for adjustment of status. I'm including a form I485 for my adjustment of status. I'm including form I765 for my work permit and also for my travel document I131.

Not to bundle all the payments but to make one payment form one for the I485, one for the work permit and one separately for the I131. >> That is a great tip. I even I did not know that that you could not could not bundle all the payments into one payment.

So it makes sense. any particular reason that why they should be doing separate payments or separate thing? Uh have you seen >> this is how this is how USCIS before when they were accepting checks and morning orders, >> right?

>> If you read the instructions for the forms, it tells you that you need to include one payment per form. So before they were more relaxed in terms of the instructions and the requirements. Now they're very strict.

>> Okay, >> that's something to keep in mind. And to go a step further, what I do with my cases is that I include a copy >> of my credit card, >> okay, >> right behind the payment form. Because another thing that we've been seeing at immigration attorneys is that USCIS >> um claims that they can see a number on the payment form for the credit card or they put in a wrong number, >> okay?

>> And then it doesn't go through because it's the wrong credit card number. So the whole application gets denied. So, if you include a copy of your credit card that you will be using for the payment, >> they have no reason, right, to reject the whole application or claim that they didn't know the numbers were correct.

>> And again, right, like use a credit card. Don't include a debit card because credit cards are more safe. >> And then once your case has been uh charged by USCIS and the payment has been processed, you can always later on get a new card if you're afraid that USCIS will have information of your credit card, right?

um they do say very explicitly that after making the payment they destroy the payment form and everything else related to payment but that's what I do >> avoid the any reasons to have your application rejected >> right uh it's surprising how uh strict they have become in terms of these payments and how particular they have been uh with regards to what they should be we should submit so one other question and this is off the cuff question that came to my mind is is there any risk in filing 140 and 485 concurrently because there is some misconception in my opinion out there that if you file concurrently it's more likely that your 140 might get rejected or get a RA fee. Is there any such correlation or is it just a myth? Okay, >> it's just a myth.

Um throughout my career I filed thousands of I140s concurrently with I485s. I think people are more hesitant to file concurrently uh because of course if the I140 gets denied then your entire green card application gets denied but what I tell people is in the first place if it was going to get denied it was going to get denied right like >> right >> do you understand what I'm saying >> correct exactly >> to file for adjustment of status you don't need to have the I140 approved and this is a huge misunderstanding that I see people telling others online >> as as long as it's your I140 is uh your priority date is is current then you're you're able to file either concurrently or with the receipt notice and for Indian nationals again this could be huge right or people that there's backlog >> because they're able to apply for adjustment of status >> and for a work permit so imagine how many people are in a situation right now where they're not >> and they're about to to expire or they're on an H-1B and they're about to max out so that's a massive benefit to buy to buy them time. >> Yeah.

No, that's that's great great clarification. I'm glad that I have brought it up. Uh what should people who are now current in the final action chart, what should they do and once they uh file for their 45, what what should they expect to happen?

>> Something very important for people is to remember that just because their priority date is current on their final action date, that doesn't mean that they're going to get approved immediately, right? Mhm. >> they could get approved because there is a green card available for them.

>> So for most cases that I've done that I observed that I heard about from other immigration attorneys, it it goes like this. People move forward in the process, you know, they do the interview if they have to. They get fingerprinted, everything gets ready and then the case goes to um a center where it waits until the final action date is current for the case.

Once the final action date is current, then the officer reviewing the case gets notified, they reopen the case. They see, you know, if there is anything missing, if it's been a very very long time, it is very common that they will ask for fingerprints again. Um, and then they're able to approve the case.

So, in in practice, I see people getting an approval within a month to four months of getting their final election date uh current. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So, does their case get uh shuffled or uh transferred over from one service center to another say to local field office or anything or >> uh does it stay? Yeah.

Okay. >> It happens and it's a good sign. If you see that your case has been transferred to a local office or a field office, it's a good sign because it means that there there's movement and they're getting ready to approve the case.

>> Okay. Okay. Have you seen anybody getting uh stuck even after their 485 uh sorry your their priority date is current in final action like their date has become current and they still haven't heard anything for weeks or months.

um yeah >> yeah very common especially because it all depends on the on the um processing center right >> correct >> some centers have more staff other centers have less some centers move faster so it really depends because I hear something in a situation where clients are like well my friend you know whose priority date is the same as mine got approved already and I didn't correct you take a look and they're actually in different uh service centers >> different service center yeah it depends totally depends yeah >> yeah makes from your perspective you dealing with the uh candidates. Have you seen people getting called for an interview um for employment based and uh if so has that percentage of people getting called for an interview risen or is it still about the same since last year? >> So we saw this happen back in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 where the government back then issue a statement that all green card applications prior to getting approved needed to go through an interview.

So all employment base were going to interviews and I actually was one of the attorneys that got sent with the clients to go to the interview. So I got to see the the type of questions that were being asked. >> Very procedural.

Very procedural. Right. Um >> now it's not as common.

My my two takes just because you get called for an interview doesn't mean that you did something wrong or there is an issue. Um and then the other take is that very very unlikely very unlikely. >> Okay.

Okay. So even if you get called for an interview in an unlikely situation, are there any tips for people who get called for an interview? What what kind of questions can they expect at the interview?

>> So very procedural especially if the I140 has already been approved right the online part of the case has already been approved. So for the vast majority of the interviews that I went that I went with my clients, the officers asked about, you know, whether they had been arrested from from the time that they filed for the I485. Um they asked where they you know very basic information from the form like where is your address, where do you work?

Employment related questions were very broad. Nothing in terms of >> challenging the underlying basis of the petition. It was more like >> are you still with the same employer?

>> You know, how much money are you making? >> Uh do you have some some good documents to bring if you get for an interview are >> um pay stops from the last three to four months just to show that you're still employed with the employer. >> Also, a verification, an employment verification letter is very helpful.

Um and then for originals, birth certificate or certified copy and then mar certificate. Those are the only documents that you need to bring original and of course your passport because you need a um photo ID to be able to get in the building. >> But very procedural in terms of practice.

I will just, you know, make a print copy of the entire I485 filing and the I140 and the approval notices. But it's not it's not necessary. the officer has everything in front of them.

>> Understood. Understood. No, that's that's great tip.

And uh you are um you pointed out very correctly that if you get an interview, it's not a bad thing. It's basically you are at the end of the process. So it's actually a good thing that you are going to be adjudicated.

So um have you noticed any social media kind of vetting happening in the 485 um adjudication process? >> Personally, no, I haven't. >> No.

Okay, because there they haven't added those things in the 485 form as far as I know. Uh they are not asking for social media handles or anything as like they are asking for the visa interviews at the consulates. So they haven't brought that into >> but something to remember and I want people to know is that >> right before you get your green card remember that the officer has to still find that you're admissible >> into the US per immigration law, right?

Um and something else that I tell people is please if you have teenagers have a conversation before going into the interview. This is not a place to joke and make you know right like fun of it. Um I heard a situation from another attorney where the family had a 16 year old and he made a question to the officer when the officer was like anyone has questions.

He was like yes um am I allowed to continue to smoke marijuana? Of course, the case was put on hold and you know it was a disaster and to remind people right um just admitting that you consume narcotics even if it's marijuana which is legal in several states even if it's prescribed >> just admitting is a grounds for inadmisibility >> right no that's that's that's kind of funny story that somebody would ask that question but uh yeah I can imagine teenagers >> yeah yeah okay uh Any other general tips for people who are current and going through the 485 stage as per your experience? Um just so that they can avoid RFS.

I know they get consistent RFS for medicals if they have expired but any other uh concerns that you have seen in full >> my last recommendation will be to make sure they use a a trusted career right like a male career if they're going to ship their applications. This is not a time to chip out, >> right? Absolutely.

>> Pay for a good one. And if you can pay for overnight delivery, pay pay for overnight delivery. Get a tracking number >> and don't request signature required.

I know people love to do that because they don't trust the right >> the mail, you know, carrier. But don't do that because if the officer that's receiving the packages >> doesn't sign or forgets to sign or there is not someone that actually has the authority to sign the application will be sent back. >> Okay.

>> Yeah. >> Okay. No, that's that's a good tip.

No, uh I think those were the kind of common questions that I know people would have and I greatly appreciate your perspective on this uh topic. Now all of a sudden like thousands of people are current. So it's kind of a busy time of the year and also the visa numbers are out.

So I will be taking a look out look at that as well before I make this video. But I appreciate you coming on on the channel again and uh happy to see you again uh next time. So thank you so much.

>> Thank you for having me. >> Yeah. And if you like the content of this video, hit the like button and consider subscribing to my channel and I'll see you in the next one.

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