One lakh Indians likely to be denied of US green card despite quota: Report
At a time when the wait for a green card in the United States for Indians extends up to decades, about one lakh green cards are likely to be wasted this year as the last date of processing visas for these applicants is September 30, which is also the end of the financial year in the US. And after this deadline, these quotas will be lost forever — under the existing laws, news agency PTI reported.
If such a huge number of green cards is wasted this year, the rise in the quota will be of no use. This year, the quota for green cards was raised from 1,40,000 to 2,61,500, but the pace at which the US Citizenship and Immigration Services processed the applications, around 1 lakh will be wasted. The number has been confirmed by the department of state office in charge of determining visa usage.
To stop this wastage, a group of 125 Indian and Chinese nationals filed a lawsuit which pointed out that in 2020, the pandemic slowed down the process and an unusually low number of family-based green cards were approved in 2020.
A delegation of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community met US President Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris on Thursday and one of the issues discussed was immigration.
“There are hundreds of thousands of gainfully employed legal immigrants in the US who would benefit from these Green Cards. Many of them have been waiting for a decade or more to adjust to permanent resident status but have been unable to do so due to a lack of available visa numbers,” PTI quoted Indian professional Sandeep Pawar as saying.
Pawar has been fighting for the rights of Indian professionals waiting for decades to get this permanent resident card in the United States. “Most potential beneficiaries, such as myself, are from India, a country that is the most backlogged due to inherently racist and discriminatory per-country quotas embedded in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Many have spouses, mostly women, who are unable to work until they become permanent residents,” Pawar said.
Republican senator Mike Lee has recently said that the backlog of an Indian national to get permanent residency in the US is more than 195 years. Someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait 195 years to receive an EB-3 green card. Even if we give their children this limbo status, none of them will have a prayer of becoming a US citizen,” the senator said.