Retention of a Priority Date

INA § 204.5(d) talks about Priority date - it is “the date of initiating an applicant’s Green Card process,” most of them start with a Labor Certification being filed with DOL (Department Of Labor).


MurthyDotCom defines a priority date as A priority date, in an employment-based (EB) case requiring Labor Certification (LC), is the officially acknowledged date that the case was filed at the state level Department of Labor office, referred to as the SESA.If the EB case was filed in a category that does not require labor certification, then the priority date assigned by the INS is the date the I-140 (Immigrant Visa Petition) is received by the INS Service Center. See Murhty’s Article on Priority Dates: How Do They Work? Available on internet at http://www.murthy.com/news/UDpdhdtw.html


The hot question in US Immigration is - can we restore an earlier priority date of an approved I-140 petition or a previous Labor Certification?


Generally, the ownership of a priority date is shifted to the beneficiary only when his I-140 petition is approved or after 180 days of filing an I-140 petition. Based on this and also as per the recent May 30, 2008, AC21 supplemental memo it is clear that priority date can be restored from an earlier I-140 approval, but never on Labor Certification alone.


INA §204.5(e) talks about Retention of priority date for section INA § 203(b)(1), (2), or (3) priority date, it briefly says that a petition approved in the EB 1, 2 or 3 category can port an old approved I-140 petition’s priority date. However, if the petition was revoked, then no retention can happen.