Downgrade to EB3 or stay in EB2?

[gkumarg]

Current category: EB2 India

Original EB3 priority date: 25Nov2009
The job duties were different. After job change within the same company, a second PERM application was filed for me.
I-140 petition approved with EB2 classification and I was able to retain the original priority date of 25Nov2009.

Based on December 2018 visa bulletin, filing action date for EB3 India is currently 01Jan10. 

Should I downgrade to EB3?
Is it possible to file a premium I-140 petition with EB3 re-classification (using prior PERM Labor certification) and concurrently file I-485?

How much would it cost if it is an option?

Appreciate any insights you can give.

[care_candidate]

I had similar situation except I changed jobs to move to EB-2.

To answer your question, yes I-140 can be done in premium with extra cost - I think $1,000 more. A few months ago they stopped accepting all premium applications, not sure if they started back yet. And no, you cannot use same PERM - it is start from scratch (You know what I mean).

Here is my insight.

I don't think there is need to downgrade. The main reasons are that first, both category are not much away from each other. Date of filings are 7 month apart with EB-3 leading and Date final action are 1 month apart with EB-2 leading. Second, suppose you were in EB-3 at this point, you could only apply I-485 but nothing will take place until "Date of final action" chart becomes current for you. And the fact that DOFA chart is still ahead for EB-2, you are in not a bad situation.

On the down side of staying with EB-2, if you were in EB-3 at this point, after applying I-485 in 180 days, you could get EAD and become free to change employer under AC portability. However, if you try to downgrade to EB-3, you are going to lose about 15 month guaranteed - see second paragraph. If during that time, retrogression happens (Happened 2 months ago and came back), you lose lot more. Be advised that when retrogression happens, EB-3 suffers more than EB-2. You also need to consider that in 2 years, there could be new administration that will upend many things current administration has done. Also there is lot of cost involved to do that downgrade and there must be justifiable reason to do that (Demotion??). Remember that you already got promotion to prove that you are at higher grade than EB-3. (Not demeaning EB-3 here 🙂)

So, on one side, with downgrade, you are losing about 15 months for sure, face risk of retrogression and EB-2 moving ahead of EB-3, face possible change of rules with new administration, cost of downgrading application, need to come up with good reasoning for downgrade. And on other side you may gain few months by moving to tide that moves faster than EB-2.

Think logically.

[Shurap1]

Everyone ran to take flight (EB2) as it goes faster than train (EB3) and not everyone could get on the flight so there got to be more waiting whereas now trains are running empty and probably may take you to your destination faster.

EB3 never moved beyond 2007 earlier and in all these years many people moved to EB2 queue, leaving lot lesser people in the EB3 queue and much lesser filing in EB3 due to amount of wait times. Seems like people who stick with EB3 from 2010-2012 may get GC much faster but it all depends on how many abandoned EB3 train to move to EB2.

Take a look at pending 485 inventory report to get the idea.

[Raman1234]

You dont need to downgrade, you already have EB3 and you can file for EAD.

Call and talk to murthy firm today