“Thank you so much, Attorney! I’m so happy!” exclaimed Ligaya Masaiahin, a fictional client of mine whose immigrant petition as a Caregiver had just been approved by the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). Our fictional phone conversation took place a few years ago at the height of the pandemic.
“You’re very welcome,” I said. “But let’s continue praying until you finally get your visa.”
“Why, Attorney? Is this not a sure thing?” In response, I explained to her that there were still a couple of things that she would have to go through, such as NVC (National Visa Center) processing, visa interview, etc.
“Ah, thanks, Attorney! I will let my family know. Oh, I’m so excited! By the way, do you know when I will get the visa?” I told her that she should be able to get a visa within the next twelve months, but reminded her to keep on praying.
“Thanks, Attorney! Don’t worry, I’m good at praying!”
Fast-forward to the present. After three long years, Ms. Masaiahin is still waiting for her immigrant visa. Gone is her normally jovial self, replaced by a woman wallowing in self-pity and despair.” In other words, the old Ms. Jolly Happy character is gone. Gradually, my role as an immigration lawyer has metamorphosed into that of a grief counselor. The main culprit? A hell of a nightmare called visa retrogression.
In layman’s terms, visa retrogression occurs when there are more immigrant visa applicants than the limited number of annual visas available for distribution to each category.
For example, a Caregiver like Ms. Masaiahin belongs to the “unskilled workers” category, in which only about 10,000 U.S. visas per year are available for distribution globally. Oftentimes, the backlog is so severe that a five-to-eight-year waiting time is the norm. Unfortunately, the phenomenon affects almost all of the employment-based and family-based categories.
Compounding the problem were the widespread US embassy closures and visa interview cancellations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to consular processing backlogs and delays, the pool of intending immigrants who were due for interview and visa issuance during the pandemic years grew exponentially bigger until there was no more proverbial room for everyone to enter. Hence, the longer wait times.
Will this nightmare ever end? Perhaps the answer lies in the past. During the 1990s and the decade thereafter, the usual migration time for unskilled workers was about five to eight years. Due to the longer wait times, and also partly due to the abundant supply of unskilled labor in the U.S. at the time, many employers stopped sponsoring unskilled people altogether, resulting in fewer visa applicants.
Consequently, the annual visa limit gradually loosened, finally bringing about the elimination of the visa backlog for unskilled workers. Thus, before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not unusual to see unskilled people migrating to the US within one to two years of being sponsored.
Unfortunately, upon realizing that a foreign worker could come and work in the US within a year or two of being sponsored as an immigrant, many overeager employers started indiscriminately sponsoring people once again, resulting in another vicious cycle of visa retrogression.
Will the nightmare ever end? The good news is it will, if the cyclical trend of the past is any indication.
When US employers begin to pull back from the indiscriminate sponsorship filings due to the lengthy waiting period, combined with the improving consular processing activities worldwide, the visa limit overstretch may ease up once more in the not-so-distant future, freeing up more visas for the likes of Ms. Masaiahin.
Who knows, Ms. Jolly Happy’s iconic character may yet make another comeback.