May 2023 Visa Bulletin Explained

This post will try to explain the negative movement of EB cut-off dates in the May 2023 Visa Bulletin and anticipate future movement of the dates.

The U.S. Department of State has released the May 2023 Visa Bulletin. This is the 8th Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2023. The U.S. government’s fiscal year always begins on October 1 and ends on September 30.

For Employment-Based (EB) cut-off dates, the Rest of World (ROW) dates got worse:

• EB2 ROW went from July 1, 2022 in the April Visa Bulletin, backwards to February 15, 2022.

• EB3 ROW went from “current” in the April Visa Bulletin, backwards to June 1, 2022.

In addition, the May 2023 Visa Bulletin’s end notes include ominous predictions of more retrogression (backwards movement) in the months ahead.

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This post (after the paywall) will try to answer some questions people have about the cut-off dates and where they are going. Specifically, this post will answer the following questions:

1. Why do Visa Bulletin cut-off dates go backwards?

2. What do cut-off dates and “retrogression” mean for people in the green card process?

3. When will dates move forward again?!

4. What can people do now while they wait?

This post (after the paywall) assumes some basic understanding of the Visa Bulletin and the cut-off dates system. If you are new to these topics, I encourage you to review my Primer on Employment-Based Cut-Off Dates of the Visa Bulletin.

Or if you are very new to immigration law, check out my post entitled, “U.S. Immigration Law Explained in One Long Post.”