So here are the numbers for April interviews. Pretty good progress for all regions with the obvious exception of EU. Those of you that watched my video about the CEAC data analysis will already know why that has happened – backlog cases from the previous months. To understand better, watch that here.

RegionAll DV Chargeability Areas Except
Those Listed Separately		 
AFRICA41,000Except:  Egypt  30,700
ASIA15,800Except:  Iran     9,800
               Nepal  10,500
EUROPE21,200 
NORTH AMERICA (BAHAMAS) 16 
OCEANIA1,975 
SOUTH AMERICA,
and the CARIBBEAN		1,560 

Those that are current, and have forms processed early enough, they can expect their 2NL in about 1 to 2  weeks from now. This is the same every month. VB from the 8th to the 15th of each month (although more recently it has been published a few days later – around the 17th/18th), and 2NLs in the second half of the month. For the last few months there have been 2NLs sent in two main batches, some early (around the 15th to 20th) and then some in the later part of the month. I would expect the 2NLs to have all been sent by the end of this month. The end of the month really means THE END OF THE MONTH. Please don’t waste my time later this month asking about 2NLs. Please. They can be sent right up until the last day of the month.

To those new to looking at VBs, let me explain what the “except” XXX country means – and you can also read this post on how to read the visa bulletin.

Processing is spread out over the full year. You can see the progress of the two previous years in this post about basic questions.  However, some countries have a high number of selectees and those selectees are concentrated in the lower case numbers. For various reasons, mainly to do with embassy capacity, KCC slow down certain countries as compared to the region. So – in Africa, any case with a case number shown as under the new number can be interviewed but for cases from Egypt, that number is lower. That isn’t a big problem, it just “slows down” those countries a little more than the rest of the region. Since selectees from those countries all have lower case numbers, this slowing down does not present any risk. It does not (at this point) mean they won’t allow all selectees an interview from those countries.

To understand why some countries get lower case numbers, read this article about the lottery draw process.