PUNE: Fewer Indians migrated to the United States on a green card during the two years leading up to 2018 as legal immigration dropped by 7.5%, according to data from the National Foundation for American Policy, a US think tank, which has attributed the fall to tighter regulations by the Donald Trump administration.The drop is in line with the overall decline of 7.3% seen during the period FY 2016 to FY 2018, according to NFAP’s analysis of recently released data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the 2018 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.“Much of the decline in Indian immigrants coming to America in 2018 was due to fewer spouses, children and parents of US citizens gaining approval to immigrate,” Stuart Anderson, executive director, National Foundation for American Policy said. “That is due to administration policies that created more extensive vetting of applications, longer delays and more visa denials at US consulates .”During the same period, the number of Indian citizens who were granted green cards fell from 64,687 in FY16 to 59,821 in FY18. Within this, the drop was the steepest in the ‘immediate relatives of US residents’ category, lower by 14.8% with 20,652 green cards granted.Since Trump became President in 2017, the US government has tightened immigration norms both through policy changes, and by introducing more checks that have slowed down the pace at which green card petitions are being granted.The report said that the administration’s primary efforts to reduce legal immigration have been through executive authority, administrative restrictions and regulatory action. “Immigration may fall by a much larger amount in the future, if the requirement that immigrants have health insurance or the public charge rule, both now blocked by the courts, go into effect,” said Anderson. “In the long run, these policies exact a personal toll on the families separated from loved ones and could eventually have broader economic and demographic impacts for the United States.”The public charge rule says that any individual who is dependent on the government for cash aid or health care would not be eligible to be granted citizenship. While the rule has currently been blocked by a circuit court, if cleared, it would impact a large number of potential immigrants.The total number of people who received lawful permanent resident status or green cards declined from 1,183,505 in FY 2016 to 1,096,611 in FY 2018, a drop of 86,894 or 7.3%.Both processing delays and policy changes that could prevent an individual from obtaining permanent residence contributed to lower immigration numbers in FY 2018. Processing delays largely reflect specific policies from the administration that have strained resources and lengthened case times, such as requiring in-person interviews for employment-based immigrants and “heightened screening and vetting”, said the NFAP report.