Bill to reduce Green Card backlog introduced by US; Indians to get the benefit
Lawmakers in the US have passed a bill to reduce the current green card backlog that is particularly affecting immigrants from countries like India and China. It was the US congressional committee that passed the bill to recapture nearly 3,80,000 unused family and employment-based visas.
The decision taken by the group of lawmakers is a relief to the immigrants and Indians are going to be benefited from the act, as revealed in an official report. The move could benefit Indian IT professionals languishing over decades of waiting for the Permanent Resident Card. The decision has been taken aiming at addressing the labor shortage in the country affecting American businesses and helping immigrant families thrive together.
It is estimated that over 1 lakh Indian spouses will be benefited from this, especially the wives of H1-B visa holders. Many had the problem with delaying their documents, many have lost jobs and set back in their career even due to visa problems. Passing the bill to remove the green card backlog is thought that it would eradicate the ongoing problems with the immigrants’ paper verifications.
It was on April 6, the powerful House Judiciary Committee passed the HR3648 or the equal access to green cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act on the party lines of 22-14 votes and it was done after hours of debate. For the Indian individuals, the bill will enable them to receive work authorization while they wait for a visa number to become available and will prevent dependent children from “aging out” of eligibility for the LPR status.
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However, there needs to be further debate and voting in the House US senate, it must be passed by the U.S. Senate before being sent to the White House for the President (Joe Biden) to sign the law. As per the vote by the House Judiciary Committee Vote, the bill eliminates per-country caps on employment-based immigrant visas and raises per-country caps for family-based immigrant visas from 7 percent to 15 percent.
The bill further elaborates the nine-year transition period for each country to be exempt from the EB-2 and EB-3 work-based visa categories. For countries other than India and China, it will reserve 30 percent of visas for the first financial year and up to 5 percent for visas for seven, eight, and nine years.
