According to Indian-American Congressman Shri Thanedar, the Green Card backlog is hindering skilled workers, including Indians, at a time when American businesses require more immigrants.
“I am an immigrant as well as a Congressman. I had nothing but my American dream when I arrived in this country at the age of 24. In a post that Thanedar made on Twitter on Thursday, he stated, “I got an education, worked hard, became an entrepreneur, and created hundreds of jobs.”
“These skilled immigrants are needed by American businesses right now. However, “people, scientists, skilled workers, and their families are experiencing hardship as a result of the lengthy Green Card backlog,” he stated.
According to Thanedar, he is working on a number of bills to shorten the time it takes to get a Green Card, which allows an immigrant to live and work in the United States permanently. He went on to say that the US immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed.
“I’m chipping away at a few bills to clear the Green Card excess. This must be made easier for immigrants. They will contribute to the creation of American jobs and the expansion and expansion of the American economy.”
Undocumented workers make up about 4.4% of the workforce, according to estimates. Immigrants make up 17% of the workforce.
In May, Thanedar and a group of 100 democrats introduced a new bill to reform the H-1B visa program and get rid of the country quota for Green Cards.
The US Citizenship Act of 2023 gives all 11 million undocumented immigrants an earned path to citizenship, giving Dreamers, people with TPS (Temporary Protected Status), and some farmworkers an immediate path to citizenship.
The United States reserves only 1.40 lakh green cards annually for employment-based applicants, and these Permanent Resident Cards are limited to 7% per country.
The number of Green Cards that can be issued to citizens of particular nations is constrained by the “per country caps.”
If more than 7% of the total number of people who can be sponsored each year come from a single country, there will be a backlog.
As a result, overabundance-supported petitions are not considered until a visa opens up and the singular’s request falls inside the underlying 7% per-country cap.
Indians in wait According to a recent study by the Cato Institute, the employment-based Green Card backlog for skilled Indians will reach 7.19 lakh in September 2021, with a 90-year wait expected.
According to the study, unless the law is changed, more than 2 lakh Indians who are stuck in this backlog are likely to die before they can get a Green Card.
Each year, between 7,000 and 8,000 employment-based Green Cards are granted to Indian citizens.
The number of Green Card applicants whose cases were documentarily complete and ready to be scheduled for an interview decreased slightly, from 409,021 in February to 396,877 in April—a decrease of only about 3%, according to the US Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC).
The number of people scheduled for Green Card interviews saw a slight increase, despite the slight drop in case counts.
In comparison to the 38,896 interviews scheduled in February, the NVC scheduled 41,904 in April.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, another Indian-American Congressman, introduced the Eliminating Backlogs Act of 2023 in March to clear up Green Card holdups.
The bill ensures that the country is properly utilizing the employment-based visas that are allotted each year in accordance with existing immigration law and provides greater flexibility for using existing allotted work visas, which are desperately needed by employers.
Employment Authorization Document This week, the United States of America eased the eligibility requirements for initial and subsequent applications for employment authorization documents (EADs) in exceptional circumstances.
You can demonstrate your legal right to work in the United States by submitting an Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766/EAD).
Immigrants who are caught between long visa wait times and ongoing layoffs will appreciate this.
They are made available to a select group of nonimmigrants who have been granted approved petitions for employment-based immigrant visas, as well as to their eligible spouse and children, and who are caught in the ever-increasing backlog of immigrant visa applications and face compelling circumstances.
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