Surprise USCIS I-485 Notices - Why is the October Visa Bulletin Delayed? transcript

Hello friends, Mandar here. I'm back with another video. Today I wanted to make a quick video on the notices that people are getting on I485 adjustment of status. There is a lot of confusion why people are all of a sudden getting these notices. What do they say and what can we interpret for them? Also, what could be the possible reason for the October 2026 visa release that is not yet come in. So, let's talk about this topic.

Watch this video until the end and let's get started. Check out the links in the description because those are affiliate links. And if you find anything interesting, that will also help the channel. While you're down there, don't forget to hit the like button, insert a comment that will get you some questions answered and also share and subscribe to the channel. That will be greatly helpful. So, let's talk about why the visa bulletin has still not come in.

There are a couple of reasons that people are speculating about this. The first is the speculation on why the visa is not coming in yet for October 2026. Now there could be vast number of reasons why USCs has been holding or department of state has holding the release of visa blitin. One of them could be the ban that was lifted as a result of clinic versus rubio case that was determined about a month and a half back.

Those 75 country ban was lifted about a month and a half back and department of state is probably reconciling those numbers what could be used going forward in terms of spillover. Secondly, there was also a pause in the green card issuance across the board all over the world in the consulates. Although although few countries have restarted giving out the green cards, vast majority of them are still not giving out the green cards.

So what impact does that have on the visa bin? Now legally they are required to spill over those family based visa numbers into employment based visa numbers but they are not going to have that information until the end of September. But in the past what has happened is USS has still gone ahead and released the visa bulletin for October and then figured out in November and December what would the actual spillover be to consider those numbers in those visa bulletins in November and December.

So there is really no reason for them to wait to release a visa bulletin. Now it could come anytime in this week on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday until the 30th. they're obligated to release those numbers as per the visa allocations that has been put set forth by the congress. So at this point of time it's anybody's guess why the do department of state has not published the visa bulletin. Okay. Okay. Now let's jump into the next topic which is these notices that people are getting who are in the adjustment of status particularly people who are in EB2 and EB3 category for India.

All of a sudden in the last couple of weeks we have seen the notices for 485 supplement J. That was a topic that I covered in one of the previous videos. All of a sudden the cases were acknowledged or cases were closed for 485 supplement J. Now supplement J is for two reason. One is to confirm the bonafide job offer or to do a job portability using AC21. So if you have been waiting on pending adjustment of status for 6 months or more, you are allowed to change the job without impacting your 485 application as long as the new job is also in the same job category as your original I140.

So that is the supplement J is how you do it. Now people who had submitted supplement JS 485 supplement JS, they all of a sudden started getting the notices that case has been closed. So that was nothing to worry about. That is just an acknowledgement from the USCS that we understand that you still have a job bonafide job offer or we understand that you have changed the job in the same job category with the EC21 rule.

So that was just acknowledgement. So that was not a big deal. But recently in the last three or four days or maybe even more especially during the weekend lot of pe people in EB2 category who have applied for their adjustment of status recently and particularly from the year 2014 as their priority date or maybe some of from the 2015 as well have started getting a notices for their adjustment of status or 485 not the supplement J but the 485.

Now the notices clearly say that the case required USCS to send the notice and also the case status has changed to initial review. Now what does this mean to me? It means that they are acknowledging that your somebody is looking at your case. Somebody has picked up your case which is pending. Even if the final action date is not current at this point of time, somebody has looked at your case or somebody has touched your case.

Now, if your case has been pending for a long time, chances are it already went through the FBI check process. But my speculation is they are going to redo the FBI check or additional checks that the Department of State has asked them to do such as social media vetting or public charge vetting. So these cases that have been pending for a while who have already gone through a background check may be going through the background check again or FBI check again to determine the social media status and also the public charge status and also the public charge checks.

So that is my speculation. Put down in the comment section below why they are doing this. Okay. Now people who have recently submitted their AOS are also getting these notices saying that the case status has been updated to initial review. that that means that they are giving the notification to the beneficiaries saying that we are now going to start the background check for you or we are going to start processing your case.

This is just a notification for you. In the past they did not care about giving this notification but going forward they're specifically giving this notification that they are working on this case. I have another theory in my mind why this could be happening. One is because they are changing their database. They are they are updating their cases. They want to show that they are working on all these cases and the reason for that is they're asking for more funding as part of the fee for that H1B $13,000 fee now for the H1Bs that they have proposed that they have um put it in another proposal.

Right? So that is going through the commenting period. But their explanation for that $103,000 fee for H1B is that they are going to cover the cost of the processing for all the applications within the USC and uh Department of State. So if that is the case, they have to show that work is happening on these pending cases. The only way they can show that the work is happening on these pending cases is to give out these intermittent notices that really mean nothing but to tell the candidate that their case is being worked on.

Now, why would anybody just change the status if their date is not current, right? That is something to think about. But they are proactively just changing the statuses even if the dates are not current. Now some people in my WhatsApp group have said that this might be a good news that they may be having enough number of visa numbers to allocate to all these pending cases as well. I doubt that theory. Maybe it's partially true.

But my speculation is they are proactively letting the candidate know that we are working on your case just to make sure that they have documented evidence for all of these cases that we are working on to avail those fee benefits that they are going to get from that $103,000 fee that they are proposing for H1B. So that is just my wild guess. Put down in the comment section below what you think about this particular notices that are coming through.

It is kind of like a privacy release notice now that we have received your petition. We are going to do the FBI check and this is your release notice that we did not do in the past but going forward we are going to do it. It may also mean that once the final action dates are current with the release of the new visa based on these spillover numbers. If your case becomes current we'll immediately process it. That could also be another meaning of it.

So although these notices are vague and there is there is no action required from you in my opinion it's a good good thing basically instead of having that case status pending forever you at least now have some moment on your case. So that's that's in my mind is a good news for your application. So put down in the comment section below what you think of my speculation on these notices. What is going to happen and also when is the visa bulletin going to be released.

As soon as that is released, I'll be I'll be I'll be sure to make a video on that to let you all know what is happening. If you want to reach out to me regarding your specific situation and get my perspective on what I would do if I were in your situation, reach out to me on Calendarly. Book 30 minutes call with me and I will happy I'll be happy to do so. Also, if you want to join my community, I have multiple channels.

I have my WhatsApp group. I have also started a discord server and also a telegram channel. All those links will be in the description if you want to join my community. And yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm still doing that giveaway by the end of this month. If you want to get into the giveaway, put the comment, like the video, subscribe to the channel, and you'll be in the giveaway. I'll see you in the next one.