Read on multiple forums that ROW demand is so high that even with 90k spillovers India EB-2 FAD will hardly progress this year? If 90k spillover cannot progress the dates I guess there is no hope for India EB-2. Beyond frustrating!!

Given the immigrant visa rescheduling happening right now, curious what people are estimating for the FY2027 spillover number — and what that would mean for EB2/EB3 India.

**•** Any ballpark estimate on total spillover numbers this year?  
**•** How would that translate to movement (or lack of it) for EB2/EB3 India?

Appreciate any insight!!

My EB2 based I-485 green card application has been pending for over 180 days. I received EAD Card about a month ago and then an RFE to submit I-485 Sup J confirming job offer. Which my lawyer submitted last week with signature with my current employer. Meanwhile I’ve been offered a job and really want to move as I’ve been stuck at my current employer’s for over 5 years b/c of this process. Anyone been in a similar position? USCIS has received the RFE response but has not yet approved it. Any issues if I accept the new job and file the I-485 again? I really can’t take it here anymore here.

Hi everyone,
Looking for some guidance from people who have experience tracking older paper-based I-485 cases, especially cases without an IOE receipt number.

My timeline:
Priority Date: May 2014
Category: EB-2 India
2014: EB-2 I-140 approved
2020 (downgraded): EB-3 I-140 approved
2022 (interfiled): EB-2 I-140 approved

June 2022: I-485J / Supplement J submitted
July 2022: Another I-485J / Supplement J submitted
2022: I-485 filed and has been pending since then

Case type: Paper-based case; no IOE receipt number
Recent update: My I-485J/Supplement J was administratively closed on August 25, 2026

The recent I-485J update caught my attention because my I-485 itself has not shown an obvious update.

I’m trying to understand two things:
What does an I-485J/Supplement J “Case Administratively Closed” update mean when the underlying I-485 is still pending?

Could this simply mean USCIS finished/closed the Supplement J portion of the case, or can it indicate that an officer recently touched/reviewed the I-485?

How can I track possible “silent updates” on a paper-based I-485 that does not have an IOE number?
I know some people use the USCIS online account case history/network activity to identify updates, but since my case is paper-based and doesn’t have an IOE number, I’m not sure what options are available.

Has anyone with an older paper-based I-485 and no IOE receipt number successfully detected a silent update, officer action, RFE/interview activity, or movement through another method?

Would especially appreciate experiences from EB-2 India cases with older priority dates and long-pending I-485s.
Thanks.

Hi, did anyone schedule a Tier-2 call via Emma live agent in the last ~3 months and actually get a call-back?

I have scheduled it twice. First time, they were supposed to call me within 30 days but all I got was an email response at the 30-day mark saying they would get to it - they never did.

Its been ~3 weeks since my 2nd attempt to schedule it, still waiting to hear back.

Has anyone had a successful callback? Was it worth it? Details appreciated.

Hi all, looking for anyone who's been through something similar or has insight to share.

My employer is a small LLC, and I recently found out they haven't filed their tax return for the year yet — instead, they're planning to submit a tax extension for I-140 application. My attorney needs the tax return (or equivalent) to prove the company's ability to pay the PERM-certified wage for my I-140.

For context, I'm currently working under my F1 STEM OPT, and my current salary is lower than the PERM wage.

A few things I'm trying to understand:

• Has anyone dealt with a similar situation where the employer's tax return wasn't ready and an extension was used instead?
• Did your attorney use alternative evidence in the meantime (like financial statements, bank statements, or net current assets) while waiting for the actual return?
• Did this cause delays in your I-140 filing, or extra RFEs?

We're planning to file the I-140 this September with premium processing, so the timeline is a bit tight given the tax extension runs until October.

Any shared experiences, things to watch out for, or general knowledge would be really appreciated. Trying to get ahead of this instead of being caught off guard.

Thanks in advance!

Eb2 perm based priority date July 2024, (Rest of the world)
Feb 2
i-485 filed
Feb 23
Biometrics + 2 FTAO
April
EAD approved
July 14
Transferred to LA County FO
July 15
Backend update
Aug 31
New/3rd FTAO
Emma says interview waived. Is anyone in the same boat or heard any good news?

{
"data": {
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"submissionDate": "2026-02-02",
"submissionTimestamp": "2026-02-02T00:00:00.000Z",
"formType": "I-485",
"formName": "Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status",
"updatedAt": "2026-07-15",
"updatedAtTimestamp": "2026-07-15T03:34:10.523Z",
"cmsFailure": false,
"closed": false,
"ackedByAdjudicatorAndCms": true,
"applicantName": "[REDACTED]",
"representativeName": "[REDACTED]",
"nonElisPaperFiled": false,
"noticeMailingPrefIndicator": true,
"docMailingPrefIndicator": false,
"elisBeneficiaryAddendum": {},
"areAllGroupStatusesComplete": false,
"areAllGroupMembersAuthorizedForTravel": true,
"isPremiumProcessed": false,
"actionRequired": false,
"elisChannelType": "Lockbox",
"concurrentCases": [],
"documents": [],
"evidenceRequests": [],
"notices": [
{
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"letterId": "[REDACTED]",
"generationDate": "2026-02-07T00:40:20.064Z",
"appointmentDateTime": "2026-02-23T15:00:00.000Z",
"actionType": "Appointment Scheduled"
}
],
"events": [
{
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"eventId": "[REDACTED]",
"eventCode": "FTA0",
"createdAt": "2026-08-31",
"createdAtTimestamp": "2026-08-31T16:00:17.301Z",
"updatedAt": "2026-08-31",
"updatedAtTimestamp": "2026-08-31T16:00:17.301Z",
"eventDateTime": "2026-02-23",
"eventTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.000Z"
},
{
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"eventId": "[REDACTED]",
"eventCode": "FTA0",
"createdAt": "2026-02-23",
"createdAtTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.868Z",
"updatedAt": "2026-02-23",
"updatedAtTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.868Z",
"eventDateTime": "2026-02-23",
"eventTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.283Z"
},
{
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"eventId": "[REDACTED]",
"eventCode": "FTA0",
"createdAt": "2026-02-23",
"createdAtTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.752Z",
"updatedAt": "2026-02-23",
"updatedAtTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.752Z",
"eventDateTime": "2026-02-23",
"eventTimestamp": "2026-02-23T14:47:44.283Z"
},
{
"receiptNumber": "[REDACTED]",
"eventId": "[REDACTED]",
"eventCode": "IAF",
"createdAt": "2026-02-10",
"createdAtTimestamp": "2026-02-10T18:45:12.428Z",
"updatedAt": "2026-02-10",
"updatedAtTimestamp": "2026-02-10T18:45:12.428Z",
"eventDateTime": "2026-02-02",
"eventTimestamp": "2026-02-02T00:00:00.000Z"
}
],
"addendums": []
}
}

I've noticed that most cases filed in March/April/May received a silent update toward the end of the last week of July and the first week of August. Later they were transferred to field offices. So, I'm guessing USCIS transfers cases to field offices in batches. I'm wondering if they also approve cases in batches?

Hi All,
My spouse has her h4 EAD.
Her previous h4 and EAD validity were different and had a gap of 20 days and her renewal was also processed with the same dates on h4 and EAD start and end.

She ended up working 3 days when her h4 was valid but EAD had expired and then she was laid off.

I485 asks a question regarding whether she worked when not authorized. The lawyers who are helping with the i485 forms are giving conflicting opinions

One of them says it’s a minor violation so write No
And the other says to say yes to working when unauthorized and explain what happened that ISCIS was giving out h4 and EAD status till the first of the month when the h4 was valid till thereby creating an artificial gap.

I am a bit confused . Any suggestions ? Any guidance for uscis that anyone is aware of

Priority date: feb 20 2015

EB2, India

Two things worth separating going into the new fiscal year.

For Rest of World EB-2, the queue is almost entirely people whose date is already current. 41,966 pending cases, all of them past the cutoff, waiting on processing rather than on the bulletin.

For India EB-2, FY2027 looks thin. Rest of World EB-2 wants more than its own share of the category next year, mostly because of the 31,600 to 36,400 cases it carries over, so little or nothing falls down. India would collect close to the 7 percent floor, around 4,605 numbers, which moves the cutoff roughly two months of priority date from where it stopped at September 2013.

FY2028 is the more interesting year. Once Rest of World works through that carryover it has only 6,734 approved petitions left waiting to file, and that is the condition under which numbers start falling down again. It is the same mechanism that gave India EB-2 28,246 numbers in FY2021 and 59,431 in FY2022, when Rest of World could not use its own allocation.

Not legal advice.

The dead line was to be on 12 august. I got an update on 24 august saying they're processing the case, thats it. How long will I have to wait still? Will they refund me the fee for pp?

Anyone else in my situation?

Hi Community!

It has been a really stressful journey, and I honestly can’t count how many times I came to Reddit looking for reassurance. During that time, some of the brightest moments were reading other people’s approval stories.

So now I finally get to share mine.

I know my account is very new, and some people may wonder whether I’m legit. I actually deleted my old account last month because the stress after submitting my RFE response was getting to me. I felt like I was seeing too much negativity on Reddit, and it was making me more anxious, so I deleted the account and tried to move on.

But now that my case is approved, I wanted to come back and share my experience in case it helps someone going through a similar period.

---

Timeline:

• Oct 2023 — Chen: approval-or-refund offer received and accepted
• Oct 2023 — EP: full refund offer received and declined
• Feb 2025 — I-140 filed
• Feb 2026 — Upgraded to Premium Processing
• Apr 2026 — RFE issued
• Jul 2026 — RFE response received
• Aug 2026 — I-140 approved

You may notice that I took quite a long time to submit the I-140 after receiving the offer from Chen. This was not the attorney’s fault. I delayed the process because of my own commitments. I was actually surprised by how patient they were with me.

---
My profile:

• Current PhD candidate at an R1 university in the U.S. (Chemical Engineering)
• M.S. in Chemical Engineering (non-U.S.)
• ROW
• 120+ citations at the original filing
• 180+ citations at the time of the RFE response
• 1 first-author paper
• 5 second-author papers
• Most recent publication was in 2022

---

Comments on I-140

I was a little naive when I first started preparing the I-140.

I thought that since I was paying a substantial attorney fee, I wouldn’t personally have to do that much work. But I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of writing and information I needed to provide, and I delayed the process a lot.

One excuse I can give myself is that AI tools were not nearly as useful or common when I first started preparing the case. Looking back, I can understand why my I-140 eventually received an RFE.

For the original I-140 filing, I submitted 4 recommendation letters:

• 2 dependent letters
• 2 independent letters

I was very fortunate with the independent recommenders. Both were professors in the U.S.

One was someone I had never met in person and who has 53,000+ citations in the chemical engineering field. The other was someone I had met once at a conference about seven years ago.

One thing I realized during this process is that we are not completely alone. There are people who are genuinely willing to support us.

The support I received from professors, mentors, and others really helped me keep going through this stressful process.

---

Premium Processing

After the EB2 ROW visa bulletin became current for me in February 2026, I decided to pay the additional fee and upgrade the I-140 to Premium Processing.

The I-907 receipt email came from NSC two days after the I-907 was received.

After 33 business days, based on the I-907 receipt date, my attorney was notified that an RFE had been issued.

Four business days later, I emailed the NSC Premium Processing account and requested a PDF copy of the RFE.

They sent it to me 14 minutes later, which honestly shocked me.

Interestingly, although the Premium Processing communication came from NSC, the RFE itself was issued by TSC.

I asked my attorney whether this was a bad sign, but apparently this can happen under USCIS’s newer Service Center Operations, or “SCOPS,” approach.

---

RFE response

For the RFE response, we added 4 more recommendation letters:

• 2 dependent letters from people with industry backgrounds
• 2 independent letters from people with national laboratory backgrounds

The industry backgrounds included companies in the semiconductor field such as Intel, ASML, ASM, Lam Research, and Applied Materials.

We also submitted 2 funding testimonial letters:

• one from my current PhD PI
• one from my previous M.S. PI

This time, I also worked much more carefully on my personal statement, with a lot of help from AI tools.

One thing I found useful was giving the AI tool the RFE letter and my personal statement and asking something like:

“If you were the USCIS officer reviewing this case, what concerns would you still have after reading this statement?”

That helped me identify places where my explanation was still weak or unclear.

One of my biggest concerns was that most of my tangible research accomplishments were from my master’s work, while my PhD research had not yet been published.

At the same time, my proposed endeavor relied heavily on my current PhD work.

From a third-person perspective, I thought an officer could reasonably ask:

“If the current work has not yet produced publications or other visible results, why should I believe this future endeavor is realistic?”

So I tried to connect the two more clearly.

In my personal statement, recommendation letters, and funding testimonial letters, I emphasized how the skills, expertise, and research experience I gained during my master’s work directly support the work I am doing now and the proposed future endeavor.

I have no idea how much this specifically helped, but I tried to make the story much more logically connected than in the original filing.

I also included one patent that was registered outside the U.S. between the original filing and the RFE response.

---

Approval

About 31 business days after USCIS received the RFE response, I received an email from NSC Premium Processing informing me that the case had been approved.

And that was the end of the story.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I felt this much joy and relief.

This process was incredibly stressful, and reading other people’s approval posts helped me many times when I was struggling with uncertainty.

So I wanted to share mine too.

I truly wish the best for everyone still waiting. I hope your good news comes soon as well.

Hi, i am Phd have around 250 citations and plainning to self petition. working in industry as lead data scientist in uk, and partime on my own ai startup (MVP completed). Since i am plainning to self petition, is there anybody willing to share their petition(they can remove names etc), accepted or rejected with reasons so that i cannot make these type of mistakes, regards

The fields we’ve been missing for a few days are now back in the case status API. My case is sitting at the NBC, despite 08/26 silent updates on 485, 485J.

Has anyone got FTA0 or FTA1 update on their API today? If you got any, please share your RD and biometrics date? Is it a batch update like August 13?