According to the White House, US President Joe Biden wants to address the excessive delays in the Green Card processing system, a move that will help many Indians working in America on the H-1B visa.
A Green Card, also known as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document given to newcomers to the United States as proof that they have been granted the right to live permanently in the country.
The existing immigration system, which imposes a 7% per country quota on allotment of the coveted Green Card or permanent legal residency, is wreaking havoc on Indian IT workers, the majority of whom are highly talented and come to the US primarily on H-1B work visas.
At a daily press briefing on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “The president clearly wants to address the delays in the Green Card processing system as well.”
She was replying to a question on the unused employment-based Green Card numbers, which will be renamed Legal Permanent Residency on October 1, because US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is unable to give them to the millions of people in line for a Green Card.
One of the primary sources of concern among Indian-Americans and their dependent children residing here is the unreasonable delay in the Green Card process for hundreds of thousands of skilled Indian technology professionals, which can take decades.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. It is the most popular among Indian IT experts. Technology firms rely on it to hire tens of thousands of workers from different countries.
The Biden administration and the US Congress had been urged by Indian IT professionals to make the required legal modifications to prevent the Green Card slots from expiring.
Delays at the USCIS could jeopardise these much-needed employment-based permits. According to recent court papers, the USCIS is in danger of wasting about 83,000 employment-based visas that expired on October 1st. This is on top of the 9,100 unused employment-based visas from the previous fiscal year.
