US Lawmakers Push For Executive Action On Green Card Priority Dates To Assist Indian Applicants

The bipartisan effort, led by US Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi with 57 lawmakers, comes as the Green Card applicants backlog from India reached 195 years. 

A Green Card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, serves as documentation issued to immigrants in the US, confirming that they have been granted the privilege of permanent residence.

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A group of US lawmakers has urged the Biden administration to take executive action to provide relief to high-skilled employment-based visa holders. The bipartisan effort, led by US Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi with 57 lawmakers comes as the Green Card applicants backlog from India reached 195 years. 

In the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the lawmakers have requested to designate all dates for filing employment-based visa applications in the Bureau of Consular Affairs' published Employment-Based Visa Bulletin as "current."

A Green Card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, serves as documentation issued to immigrants in the US, confirming that they have been granted the privilege of permanent residence.

The Congressmen said that by marking all dates as "current," employment-based applications could be filed without regard to applicants' country-based priority date. This would offer relief to numerous individuals navigating the US immigration system and may even make some eligible for Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) allowing them to change jobs, start businesses, and travel abroad to visit family without facing penalties.

Without this administrative action, which was also used during the administration of President George W Bush, individuals are left in a constant state of limbo and, in some cases, are punished for utilising a pathway of legal immigration by being forced to stay with one company or organisation due to their Green Card status, the letter said.

President of Immigration Voice Aman Kapoor said, "This commonsense measure proposed in the letter by Congressmen Krishnamoorthi and Bucshon would be an absolute game changer to provide basic human rights such as the ability to change jobs and travel for nearly one million high skilled immigrants whose status in the US can end at any moment and is entirely dependent upon the whims of their employer".

The entire basis for this problem is a discriminatory immigration system that requires Indian nationals to have to wait "200 years for a Green Card while people from 150 other countries have no wait at all", he said, adding, "We now call on the Biden administration to do the right thing and heed the call of this rare bipartisan letter and give high-skilled immigrants here for over a decade the same rights to work and travel that people being paroled into the US for the first time just this week have."

According to Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS USA), the current situation surrounding the 7 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

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, they said in a separate letter to the US government.