US urges Indians to cut long wait for green cards

Washington: A group of US lawmakers has urged the Biden administration to take executive action to make priority dates current for Green Card applicants from India to reduce the 195-year-long wait period which has left them in a constant state of limbo.

Led by Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi and Larry Bucshon, the bipartisan group of 56 lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas requesting the administration take executive action to provide relief to high-skilled employment-based visa holders.

In their letter, the US lawmakers also appealed to the administration to mark all dates for filing of employment-based visa applications in the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ published Employment-Based Visa Bulletin as “current”.

The current situation surrounding the seven per cent country cap on employment-based Green Card allocation is causing severe repercussions, particularly for countries such as India, where the backlog has reached an astonishing 195 years, said Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS USA) in a separate appeal to the US President Joe Biden.

This backlog disproportionately affects Indian tech professionals, who constitute a significant portion of the highly skilled STEM talent and US-educated graduates, playing a crucial role in maintaining the United States’ competitive edge in the technology industries, it said.