Home US US likely to Lift Country-Wise Cap on Green Cards

US likely to Lift Country-Wise Cap on Green Cards

US likely to Lift Country-Wise Cap on Green Cards
US likely to Lift Country-Wise Cap on Green Cards

The US House of Representatives will vote on 9 July 2019 on a bill that legislates to lift the country-cap on issuing green cards. Indians working in US are likely to hugely benefit from this.

US House of Representatives will vote on 9 July 2019 on a bill that legislates to lift the country-cap on issuing green cards.

Lifting the per-country cap on Green Card would mainly benefit high-tech professionals on H-1B work visas from countries like India, for whom the wait for Green Card is more than 10 years.

Some recent reports have shown that sometimes the waiting period for Indian IT professionals on H-1B visas is more than 70 years.

Being supported by more than 310 lawmakers from both the Republican and the Democratic Party, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act is all set to sail through the 435-member House of Representatives.

The proposal for the legislation is through a fast-track process which requires 290 votes to pass a bill without hearing and amendments.

The Library of Congress Tuesday has stated that the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, also known as HR 1044, is the most viewed bill in the week beginning July 7.

According to independent Congressional Research Service (CRS), this bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from seven per cent of the total number of such visas available that year.

It increases up to 15 per cent and eliminates the seven per cent cap for employment-based immigrant visas.

Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85 per cent shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country, CRS said.

This will incentivize more hundreds of thousands of low cost and less skilled contract workers who entered US on temporary visas (mainly H-1Bs), often working in the tech sector.

These employers are mainly Big Tech and foreign outsourcing companies.

Under current rules, citizens of India are getting about 25 per cent of all the professional employment green cards each year.

If this bill becomes law citizens of India will get more than 90 per cent of the professional employment green cards, according to USCIS report.

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