Washington:
The US Senate has unanimously passed a bill that eliminates the per-nation numerical limitation for employment-primarily based immigrant visas and raises it for family members-primarily based visas, a legislation that will hugely advantage hundreds of thousands of Indian specialists in America who have been waiting for years to get their green cards.
The passage of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act by the Senate on Wednesday comes as a significant relief to Indian IT specialists who come to the US on H-1B function visas and their existing waiting period for Green Card or permanent residency is operating into decades.
Originally passed by the US House of Representatives on July 10, 2019 by a bipartisan 365 to 65 votes, the legislation increases the per-nation cap on family members-primarily based immigrant visas from seven per cent of the total quantity of such visas offered that year to 15 per cent. It was sponsored by Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah in the Senate.
The legislation eliminates the seven per cent cap for employment-primarily based immigrant visas, a provision that will facilitate removal of the huge backlog of Indian IT specialists in the US. It also removes an offset that decreased the quantity of visas for people from China. Because of arbitrary per-nation caps, the legal status of Indian IT specialists was frequently in jeopardy.
In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are unique categories of employment-primarily based Green Cards.
In July, Senator Lee had told the Senate that the backlog for an Indian national to get permanent residency or Green Card is much more than 195 years.
The new legislation also establishes transition guidelines for employment-primarily based visas from FY2020-FY2022, by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with sophisticated degrees or exceptional capability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for people not from the two nations with the biggest quantity of recipients of such visas.
Of the unreserved visas, not much more than 85 per cent shall be allotted to immigrants from any single nation. Running against time, the Senate on Wednesday moved the procedure really immediately. It was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee by unanimous consent and quickly thereafter it was viewed as by the complete Senate. The Senate passed it immediately with unanimous consent.
Currently, there is a backlog of just about one particular million foreign nationals and accompanying family members members lawfully residing in the US who have been authorized for, and are waiting to acquire, employment-primarily based Green Cards. The biggest quantity of them are from India.
The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act creates a much more merit-primarily based technique that levels the playing field for higher-skilled immigrants, stated Senator Kevin Cranmer, who worked to assure that the legislation involves safeguards against fraud and abuse in the visa technique.
The Senate passed the bill as Senator Cramer presided more than the chamber. Immigration is frequently a contentious challenge, but we should really not delay progress exactly where there is bipartisan consensus,” he said.
In February 2019, Cramer brought Debjyoti Dwivedy (“DD”), a North Dakota State University alumnus and Vice President of Immigration Voice, a group which advocates for this bill, as his guest to the State of the Union.
As Congress debates the a lot of elements of our broken immigration technique, Debjyoti delivers knowledge and experiences that reflect North Dakota priorities and values, Senator Cramer stated at the time. It is my hope we can lastly pass a version of the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act this Congress.
Being invited as his guest to the State of the Union was a good honour. To me, this demonstrates his appreciation for the essential part immigrants play to North Dakota. His ardent assistance for the Fairness for Immigrants Act is located in each his conservative principles and his commitment to the persons of North Dakota, DD wrote soon after the occasion.
In August, Senator Lee on the Senate floor stated that he has normally been struck by the reality that the government has conditioned green cards and a pathway to citizenship primarily based solely on the applicant’s nation of origin.
There may perhaps have been some genuine cause a lot of decades ago in reality for this, but this has led to a technique that largely discriminates against green card applicants from one particular nation, he told his Senate colleagues.
I imply actually one particular nation. This is inconsistent with our founding principles. this is not how we attempt to do issues as Americans, and it really is not suitable. Today, if you happen to be a function-primarily based immigrant from India getting into into the EB- green card application procedure, you will wait just about 200 years ahead of your application is even viewed as solely since of exactly where you have been born, he had stated.
Almost 200 years on a waiting list. Some persons do not even reside that lengthy. Our nation is not substantially older than that, and that is the quantity of time they would have to wait primarily based solely on the basis of the nation in which they have been born, Lee had stated, urging his colleagues to lift the nation-cap on Green Card applicants.
If you happen to be born anyplace else, anyplace else other than China let’s say in Ghana, Sweden, Indonesia, fundamentally any other nation other than India your application will be viewed as straight away. This sort of discrimination is just inconsistent with the principles of a merit-primarily based immigration technique and with our founding principles and the principles that unite us as Americans, he had stated.
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