Green card wait can go up to 151 yrs for Indians
WASHINGTON: Indians with advanced degrees may have to wait for over 150 years for a green card which authorises them to live and work in the US permanently, according to projections by a think-tank.
The new calculation on the Green card wait period by Cato Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, comes after the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently released number of applicants for such cards. The calculation is based on the number of green card issuances in 2017. As of April 20, 2018, there were 632,219 Indian immigrants and their spouses and minor children waiting for green cards also known as legal permanent residency cards.
The shortest wait is for the highest skilled category for EB-1 immigrants with “extraordinary ability”. EB stands for employment based.
The extraordinary immigrants from India will have to wait “only” six years, Cato Institute said in its latest report.
According to the USCIS, there are 34,824 Indian applicants under EB-1 category.
EB-3 immigrants— those with bachelor’s degrees— will have to wait about 17 years, Cato Institute said.
WASHINGTON: A new study based on recently released immigration data projects a waiting period of 151 years for most Indian applicants cleared for US permanent residency or Green Card.
Cato Institute, a conservative American think-tank, said the wait for Indian applicants with advanced degrees — the wait would be most of those on H-1 visas — could be 151 years, and 6 and 17 respectively for others, either with “extraordinary ability” or just a bachelor degree.
There is a country-based cap of 7% on the number of Green Cards that can been given every year. This has worked well for applicants from most countries, except for India. The demand far outstrips the availability, leading to a backlog that keeps growing.
The waiting period for Indians has been previously projected between 70 and 95 years and now it is 151, according to Cato. “Obviously, unless the law changes, they will have died or left by that point,” it noted in a report.
Efforts are underway to change that. The US House of Representatives is expected to debate next week a pair of bills that addresses larger immigra- tion issues such as border security, end to family-based immigration, diversity visa lottery, as also the fate of undocumented immigrants brought as children.
One of the bills is proposed and backed by Republican party immigration hardliners, which has zero chance of passing. The other one, a “moderate” package, backed by the Republican party leadership, has a better chance of passage. It may or may not make it through the Senate.
Both the bills address the issue of “per country limit”, the hundred and thousands of Indians in the Green Card queue are closely following the discussions and organisations advocating their cause such as Immigration Voice are lobbying lawmakers to see it through.
President Donald Trump has said he will not sign the moderate bill, apparently after having backed both of them.