The much sort-after green card of the United States of America is going to be harder than ever to get with an extremely long wait-time. Infact, most applicants might even die before receiving one. The mind-boggling news comes after a US Senator spoke about the crazy wait times only after which new Indian applicants will be receiving their green cards.
The “awful, hellish green card backlog” which has forced Indians to wait for several years to get their green cards has no intentions of making things easier. A Republic Senator has warned that the current wait time of 195 years could go up to 450 years in a span of 10 years, that is by 2030, unless a thorough and complete reform of the immigration system is put in place.
Senator Mike Lee said on Wednesday: “By the time we stretch this (backlogs) out to 2030, the 195-year backlog I mentioned a moment ago would be extended out to a 400- to 450-year backlog.”
He explained saying, “For those filing for green cards in 2020, the wait for an EB2 green card is not, in fact, 20 to 30 years for an Indian national. What is it, then? Is it 30? Is it 40, 50, 60? No, it is much longer than that. It is 195 years. This means that someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait 195 years to receive an EB3 green card.”
Applicants with advanced degrees receive the EB2 green cards which are the permanent immigration visas, straight up leading to citizenship in the future, while the EB# green cards are for skilled and professional workers.
The annual green card quota for India and most countries is about 26,000.
Senator Lee drew the wait-times but denied supporting the Democratic bill that is built to safeguard children, of people living in America on H1-B and other employment visas, from getting deported once they turn 21.
With such extremely long wait times, these children would not survive in the US as their green cards won’t be issued in their lifetimes, he said, and hence a comprehensive reform is mandatory to protect them.
When children turn 21, they are no longer considered dependents, losing the liability to their parents’ visa status, including their claim to file for a green card. The Protect Children of Immigrant Workers Act proposed by Democrat Senator Dick Durbin seeks to rectify this, to avoid the havoc.
While the cause of children who came to the US illegally has a lot of political support, the children who came in legally but reached adulthood has been under the radar and Durbin’s bill proposes a parallel remedy.
According to Durbin, increasing the number of green cards is the only option, given the long wait times.
He said, “Just do the math; 140,000 EB (employment) visas and 226,000 family visas per year and 5 million people waiting. If you think you can solve this without changing the number of green cards, you can’t.”
He also mentioned other Republicans’ disagreement to increase the number of green cards to be issued in a year, as told to him by Lee.
If Durbin’s bill is transformed into a law, H1-B visa-holders would be permitted to file early for green cards, allowing them to break the handcuffs that kept them tied to the employers who sponsored for their visa and helping to work in other places.
However, Durbin’s bill offers a drawback- restriction of H1-B visas for outsourcing business houses. This means that companies who hire extra H1-B employees would be forbidden to do so in the future; it implies if the company’s staff exceeds 50 where more than half of them are temporary workers.
He said that eight of the top ten companies getting H1-B visas were outsourcing companies.
In a bid to provide his reasons for opposing Durbin’s bill, Lee highlighted the Act proposed by Democratic Senator Kamala Harris and himself which is laid out to protect children, widows and widowers of H1-B visa holders and at the same time, to accelerate the green card processing for all highly skilled professional immigrants.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that allows the restriction on national quotas to be freed, permitting Indian applicants hoping for green cards to receive access to more immigration visas. However, this has been stopped from materializing by Durbin and two Republicans.
Durbin argued that lifting the national quota restrictions would increase the wait times for other countries and this would change only when the number of green cards is increased.
