80,000 plus employment-linked green cards were wasted, but bills hold promise of a better future
MUMBAI: All may not be lost for the Indian diaspora caught in a decades-long backlog for an employment-linked green card, which according to Cato Institute is inordinately long – at 84 years!
US Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has introduced the ‘Preserving Employment Visas Act’. This House Bill, which follows close on the heels of the companion bill introduced in the Senate by Senator Thom Tillis, will permit US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to preserve unused employment-based visas for use in fiscal years 2020 and 2021. To begin with, if enacted, the 80,000 plus employment-based green cards that expired on September 30, 2021, will roll over and can be used to clear the green-card backlogs.
TOI had reported on the Senate version of the Bill in its edition of September 25.
Due to the pandemic, an unusually low number of family-based green cards were approved in fiscal year 2020 (year ended September 2020), causing unused family-based visas to a ‘roll over’ into the employment-based category in fiscal year 2021. This caused the number of employment-based green card numbers to rise to 2,26,000 – as the roll-over numbers did not face the strictures of a 7% per-country cap this offered a lot of hope to backlogged Indians of obtaining a green card.
However, processing delays at USCIS led to their expiry (going to waste). “According to recent court filings, USCIS is currently at risk of wasting almost 83,000 employment-based green cards which expired on October 1st, 2021. This is in addition to 9,100 unused employment-based visas from fiscal 2020,” according to a release issued by Miller-Meeks’ office.
A lawsuit filed by 125 Indian and Chinese nationals to prevent the employment-based green cards from going to waste did not meet the desired results. A day before the expiry date of September 30, Judge Peter J. Messitte, of the US District Court (Maryland), did not rule on the issue of preserving the green cards. Instead, he has ordered the case, to be severed into separate action suits.
To date, the plans of the Democrats to include immigration reforms in the reconciliation (budget bill) have also not borne fruit.
“Ensuring that our immigration system is fair and orderly is one of my top priorities in Congress. These visas are already authorized by Congress and would have been used if not for the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Miller-Meeks. “My legislation would fuel the American recovery from Covid-19, contribute to long-term economic growth, and provide relief for healthcare providers by reducing the green card backlog. As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, I look forward to working with USCIS to make sure that our immigration system works for everyone,” she added.
Miller-Meeks went on to state: “Wasting these visas would be a major loss to American economic competitiveness and to the healthcare industry. American businesses and healthcare providers were already struggling to fill both skilled and unskilled jobs before Covid-19 and continue to face labor shortages during our recovery from the pandemic.”