October 30, 2026 – Weekly Immigration News Update.

IMMIGRATION ALERT: A Pending Extension or Change of Status May Not Prevent Removal After Your I-94 Expires

A Recent H-4 Situation Illustrates the Risk:

Domestic Air Travel Requires Caution:

November 2026 Employment-Based Final Action Dates:

EB-1 Priority Workers:

EB-3 Professionals and Skilled Workers:

China advances approximately two weeks to January 22, 2022. India advances approximately three weeks to January 22, 2014. The Philippines remains unchanged at August 15, 2023. All other countries advance by one month to June 15, 2024.

EB-5 Immigrant Investors:

There is no movement in the backlogged EB-5 Unreserved categories. China remains at December 1, 2016, while India remains at December 1, 2023. The EB-5 Unreserved category remains Current for all other countries. Importantly, the three EB-5 reserved or set-aside categories — Rural, High Unemployment Area, and Infrastructure — remain Current for all countries, including China and India

Why the Dates for Filing Chart Matters:

USCIS’s decision to continue using the Dates for Filing chart for employment-based adjustment applications is significant. An applicant does not necessarily need to wait until the priority date becomes current under the Final Action Dates chart to file the I-485. If the priority date is earlier than the applicable November Dates for Filing cutoff and all other adjustment requirements are satisfied, the applicant may be able to file the I-485 during November. Filing the I-485 can provide important benefits, including the ability to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and Advance Parole, and, in qualifying employment-based cases, may eventually provide AC21 job-portability protections after the I-485 has remained pending for at least 180 days. Applicants should remember, however, that USCIS generally cannot approve the I-485 until the priority date is current under the applicable Final Action Dates chart and an immigrant visa number is available.

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Computer Professionals: Can You Upgrade Your EB-2 or EB-3 Green Card Case to EB-1A and Keep Your Old Priority Date?

An EB-1A Strategy May Help Highly Accomplished Technology Professionals Get Their Green Cards Faster — and Could Be Critical for Children Approaching Age 21 Thousands of highly skilled computer professionals have approved EB-2 or EB-3 I-140 petitions but remain trapped in lengthy employment-based green card backlogs, particularly professionals born in India and China. For some accomplished technology professionals, there may be another strategy worth examining: filing a new EB-1A Extraordinary Ability petition while retaining the priority date from an earlier approved EB-2 or EB-3 I-140 petition. This strategy can potentially move a qualified professional into the employment-based first-preference category, where visa availability may be substantially better than EB-2 or EB-3. For families with children approaching age 21, the strategy can be even more important because obtaining visa availability sooner may help preserve a child’s ability to immigrate as a derivative beneficiary under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA).

You Do Not Necessarily Have to Abandon Your EB-2 or EB-3 Case:

A common misconception is that pursuing EB-1A means giving up an existing PERM, EB-2, or EB-3 green card case. Generally, that is not necessary.

A qualified professional may be able to maintain the existing employment-based immigrant petition while independently filing a Form I-140 under EB-1A.

EB-1A is particularly attractive because it permits self-petitioning. Unlike the typical EB-2 or EB-3 PERM case, EB-1A does not require a permanent labor certification or necessarily require an employer to sponsor the I-140. The applicant must instead establish extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim and demonstrate that the applicant intends to continue working in the area of extraordinary ability.

The Critical Advantage: Keeping an Earlier Priority Date:

Suppose an Indian computer professional began a PERM case many years ago and now has an approved EB-2 I-140 with a 2014 priority date. Over the years, that professional may have become a recognized expert in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud architecture, data science, machine learning, software engineering, enterprise technology, or another specialized field. If the professional now qualifies for EB-1A, a new EB-1A I-140 can potentially retain the earlier priority date from the previously approved I-140, subject to USCIS priority-date retention rules. That can be enormously valuable. Instead of receiving only the filing date of the new EB-1A petition as the operative place in the immigrant visa queue, the applicant may be able to carry forward the much older priority date from the prior approved EB-2 or EB-3 petition.

Priority dates determine an employment-based immigrant’s place in line for visa availability, and visa backlogs can cause applicants from oversubscribed countries to wait years before an immigrant visa becomes available. 

Priority-date retention is subject to important regulatory exceptions and should be reviewed carefully in every case, particularly where a prior I-140 has been revoked or invalidated.

Why Computer and IT Professionals Should Reevaluate Their Credentials:

Many professionals assume that EB-1A is limited to Nobel Prize winners, famous scientists, or internationally known celebrities. That is incorrect. The real question is whether the professional can satisfy the EB-1A legal framework and demonstrate, based on the evidence as a whole, the required level of sustained acclaim and standing in the field. A senior computer professional may have developed significant credentials after the original EB-2 or EB-3 case was filed. For example, potentially valuable evidence can include major original technical contributions; patents or widely implemented innovations; published scholarly or technical articles; peer-review or judging activities; important roles for distinguished technology companies or organizations; media coverage; significant awards; high compensation compared with others in the field; invited conference presentations; professional recognition; citations to published work; leadership in important AI, cybersecurity, cloud, software, or engineering projects; and evidence demonstrating the broader significance of the professional’s work. Merely being a senior software engineer, architect, manager, or highly paid IT professional is not enough. The case must establish the applicable EB-1A criteria and, ultimately, demonstrate extraordinary ability under USCIS’s overall merits analysis.

EB-1A Could Be Especially Important When Your Child Is Approaching 21:

For parents with teenage children, waiting for an EB-2 or EB-3 priority date to become current creates another concern: aging out. Employment-based derivative children generally must remain eligible as “children” under U.S. immigration law. The CSPA can protect some children from aging out, but its calculation is more complicated than simply freezing a child’s age when an I-140 is filed.

For employment-based derivative beneficiaries, CSPA generally calculates the child’s protected age by taking the child’s age when an immigrant visa becomes available and subtracting the amount of time the applicable immigrant petition was pending. USCIS guidance also imposes a “sought to acquire” requirement, generally requiring appropriate action toward permanent residence within one year of visa availability, subject to limited exceptions. 

Under USCIS’s current policy, for CSPA purposes USCIS considers a visa available based on the Final Action Dates chart, not simply because USCIS permits filing an I-485 under the Dates for Filing chart. 

That distinction is extremely important.

How an EB-1A Case May Help an Aging-Out Child;

Consider a professional with an approved EB-2 petition and an old priority date who has a child who is now 19 or 20. If the family’s EB-2 priority date remains years away from visa availability, the child could face an age-out problem despite the parent’s approved I-140. But if the parent independently qualifies for EB-1A and can retain the old priority date, the family’s priority date may become current under EB-1 much sooner. That earlier visa availability could allow the principal applicant, spouse, and qualifying derivative children to proceed with adjustment of status or immigrant visa processing sooner. This can potentially make the difference between a child immigrating with the parents and the child eventually needing an entirely separate immigration strategy. However, EB-1A does not automatically “freeze” a child’s age, and filing an EB-1A petition by itself does not guarantee CSPA protection. The child’s exact date of birth, applicable petition-pending period, priority date, visa availability, I-140 history, and the timing of the child’s actions must all be analyzed carefully.

A Hypothetical Example:

Assume an Indian-born computer professional has: EB-2 priority date: June 2014 Approved EB-2 I-140: Yes Current position: Senior AI/Cloud Architect Child’s age: 19½ New accomplishments: Published work, citations, judging, original technical contributions, leadership on major projects, high compensation, and industry recognition. The professional should not necessarily sit and wait for the EB-2 India priority date to reach June 2014. An immigration attorney can evaluate whether the professional’s accomplishments support EB-1A classification. If an EB-1A I-140 is approved and the earlier EB-2 priority date can properly be retained, the applicant would then look to EB-1 visa availability using that older priority date. If that makes an immigrant visa available substantially sooner, the strategy could accelerate the entire family’s path to permanent residence and may materially improve the child’s CSPA position.

Do Not Wait Until the Child Is Almost 21:

For professionals with children approaching 21, the best time to evaluate EB-1A is before the family reaches an age-out emergency. Building a strong extraordinary-ability petition takes careful analysis and documentation. USCIS must evaluate the quality and significance of the evidence, not simply count documents or accomplishments. Computer professionals with long-pending EB-2 or EB-3 cases should therefore periodically reassess their careers. The credentials you had when your PERM was filed eight or ten years ago may bear little resemblance to your professional record today. You may now have the accomplishments necessary to pursue an immigration category that was not realistically available earlier in your career.

The Bottom Line:

An approved EB-2 or EB-3 petition does not necessarily mean that a professional must remain in that category indefinitely. For highly accomplished software engineers, AI and machine-learning professionals, cybersecurity specialists, cloud architects, data scientists, researchers, engineering leaders, technology executives, and other computer professionals, an EB-1A petition may provide an alternative path.

The strategy can be particularly powerful when three factors come together:

an old approved EB-2 or EB-3 I-140 + a priority date that can be retained + a professional record that now qualifies for EB-1A. For families with children approaching age 21, the analysis becomes even more urgent. A successful EB-1A strategy cannot guarantee CSPA protection, but in the right case, earlier visa availability can be critical to preserving a child’s ability to immigrate with the family.

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