Each month, the Department of State conducts a YouTube Live session with Charlie Oppenheim, the Chief of Visa Control and Reporting Division. During these sessions, Mr. Oppenheim is asked pre-prepared questions from the panelist, and also takes some questions live that will be answered in real-time. The schedule for each monthly chat is posted at the bottom of the Department of State announcement of the visa bulletin.

The “Chats with Charlie” session is intended to address issues of general interest related to the content of the Visa Bulletin. Because of the real possibility of the wastage of Employment-Based green cards due to USCIS delays, we recommend that you take advantage of the opportunity to send in questions regarding this issue.

You can send an email to VisaBulletin@state.gov before the next event next month with “Chat with Charlie Question” in the subject line.

Below are some questions that you may want to send via email:

1. You have indicated that you move the dates so that they are used in 6-12 months. However, USCIS is indicating it is taking 11 months to 62 months to adjudicate employment based green card cases. Please explain how USCIS is expected to adjudicate the green card cases in 6 months to 12 months.
2. While most of the preference family based immigration petitions are adjudicated by the consular offices, most of the employment based Immigration petitions (about 95%) are adjudicated by USCIS in the USA. Under these circumstances, what is the justification in moving the employment based dates in the same manner as the family preference category?
3. You were anticipating 150,000 extra employment based green cards due to unused family preference since May of 2021. Why not move the final action dates for Employment Based for Indian & Mainland China in June to a level where it meets the demand in fiscal year 2022? You might already know that USCIS is taking between 11 to 62 months to adjudicate – this would have given them a chance for them to adjudicate in the fiscal year 2022. 
4. Since USCIS is taking about 11 to 62 months to adjudicate the AOS applications, why doesn’t the State Department move the Employment Based Priority dates to meet the demand in advance since the average processing time is about 40 months and we only have inventory of 273,000 in employment based category, dates should be moved to current for EB India and Mainland China.
5. Does the State Department receive different (other than what they publish online)  data from USCIS about the time it takes for adjudicating the employment based AOS applications?
6. Does the State Department receive a different number of pending AOS applications than what USCIS publishes online?