A sought-after visa that offers a speedy path to US citizenship is temporarily closed to Chinese and Indian nationals. The US State Department announced it would stop processing EB-1 applications from Indian and Chinese nationals until later in October.

Immigration lawyers explained that the EB-1 visa is available to three categories of candidates: people with extraordinary abilities in arts, science and business; researchers and professors; and multinational business executives and managers.

EB-1 visas are typically limited to 40,135 for this fiscal year, and no more than 7 percent can go to immigrants from any one country. Currently, we have a problem because there are too many Indian and Chinese trying to get their hands on the EB-1, exhausting the limit. The last time this happened was back in 2007.

“Why do we continue to artificially limit this program?” asked immigration lawyer David Parker. “It defies logic that we are turning away extraordinary and outstanding artists, scientists and business people from India and China,” he added.

The EB-1 visa typically results in a green card in less than a year — one of the quickest pathways to receive one. And unlike many visas, some kinds of EB-1 visas don’t require applicants to be sponsored by employers. This is a godsend as it gives talented artists and brilliant scientists frustrated with the more traditional path to US citizenship, like the H-1B visa, a speedy alternative.

The H-1B is one of the most heavily used visas by Indian techies and professionals. Demand far exceeds the annual allotment. The H-1B requires workers to be sponsored by an employer and leaves applicants at the whim of lotteries. This year demand for H-1B visas surpassed the entire year’s allocation within five days and the US government ultimately awarded H-1Bs through a computer generated random lottery.

“A lot of people saw the EB-1 as the light at the end of the tunnel,” Shah Peerally, who heads up an immigration law firm in Newark, California, told CNN.

For the first time in nine years, the cap on a prized US visa for the most skilled Chinese and Indian workers is set to be reached.

The EB-1 is for immigrants of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors or researchers, and certain executives at multinational companies. In effect, it’s intended for the world’s “best and brightest” who wish to become permanent US residents, and even eventually citizens. Preliminary figures from the US State Department show that 12,253 Indians and 6,239 Chinese were granted EB-1 visas in 2015. The State Department was not able to provide how many of these visas have been issued so far this year.

As of July, the “priority date” for EB-1 approvals was “current”—meaning that all applications are being considered immediately. However, come August, the priority date will be set to Jan. 1, 2010, for EB-1 applications from Indian and Chinese nationals. That means applicants must have submitted their applications before Jan. 1, 2010, to be considered for the EB-1, this year.

Backdating the deadline, known as “retrogression,” is an administrative maneuver to keep the application queue orderly and manageable when there aren’t enough visas to go around. Since 1991, the priority date for EB-1 has retrogressed from “current” for India three times and for China six times.

Only a limited number of EB-1 visas are available each year, although the exact cap per country is hard to state with certainty because caps depend on a number of shifting factors. A surge in EB-1 applications from one country’s citizens, for example, could cause a decline in the number available to another nation.

For years, it was considered the fastest and most reliable way to gain authorization to permanently stay in the US for work. “The conventional wisdom is try to get into the EB-1 because you don’t have to worry about it,” Susan Cohen told Quartz. “It’s fastest employment-oriented way. Historically it’s always been the fastest.” Cohen is the chair of the immigration practice at Boston-based law firm Mintz Levin.

In the past, Cohen and others in the industry have advised clients to do everything they can to become eligible for an EB-1. A years-long strategy to obtain US citizenship can include getting published in more prestigious publications, working at more highly respected companies, or getting promoted to a managerial position outside the US, before applying. Cohen suspects this last tactic—savvy multinational companies promoting workers they want to transfer to the US—may have caused an increase in demand for the EB-1. [See this article on how Microsoft has adopted this strategy:

The implication for businesses on the whole should be small, since applicants for the EB-1 typically are already in the US, working on another, shorter-term authorization, according to Cohen. There are still risks, however. Employees currently working in the US on a non-extendable, time-limited visa who have been waiting for EB-1 approval could potentially find themselves forced to leave the US when their time runs out. Switching to permanent residency is desirable because it means not needing employer sponsorship of a visa and never having to renew or extend a visa. It also offers the first step toward becoming a US citizen.