Citizen Path: How to Read the Visa Bulletin by Priority Date

Note: You will need to understand how to read a Visa Bulletin like this one in order to complete many of the hypos, including the Pulp Fiction and Weekend hypos.

Here is my simple explanation. The visa bulletin lists dates from the past. Those dates represent the date on which applications that were filed are now available. So, for example, if the date for a first preference petition from China is listed as January 1, 2010. Then you know that people who applied on January 1, 2010 from China in that preference category are now available. So you'd subtract today's date from that date. However many years/months that number equals, thus, represents how long people have waited in that preference category from that country for a visa to be available. So we use that to predict how long they will have to wait. So we are merely estimating the time someone will wait in the future by the time someone waited in the past, which of course is extremely imperfect.

Consider an analogy. You see a long line to a famous taco stand. You go to the front and ask the person at the front how long they have been waiting. They say 30 minutes. So then you go to the back of the line assuming you will also wait 30 minutes. But, of course, the line could be longer now for you than how long it was when that other person started in line, there might be fewer cooks working now than before which would slow down the speed they could make the orders, etc., etc. 

There is an alternative way that is more reliable but also much more complicated. If you practice family-based immigration, then this is worth learning and using with your clients. The link is below in the supplemental info section from the Catholic Legal Immigration Network about shedding light on the backlog numbers.