THE LONGEST GREEN CARD WAIT TIMES FOR WORKERS

NEW DELHI: A recent US Congressional Research Service report said that removing country quotas for the green card will see the likes of India and China dominate the race for the coveted document that allows the holder to live and work permanently in US. Indians applying for green cards in the skilled workers category suffer the brunt of the country based quota system and face a decade-long wait time.It is to be noted that only 7% of the yearly quota of employment-based and family-based green cards can go to applicants from the same country, no matter the size of its population. And only 10,000 visas are given out per year in some categories, like “other” or “unskilled workers”. It is here that Chinese green card applicants have caused close to a 12-year backlog.Categories can get backlogged even further if a large number of applicants from the same country flock to the same category, given that such categories can take up only certain fractions of total yearly green cardsAs of April 2018, a total of 306,601 Indian nationals — mostly IT professionals — were in line for green cards. Indians account for a whopping 78% of the 395,025 foreign nationals waiting for green cards in just one category: employment-based applications.With some lawmakers planning moves to abolish at least some of these quotas, India and China could dominate the green card queue in the future — at least until the backlog is cleared.Source: Statista; Media reports