Indians with advanced degrees may have to wait 151 years for green card, says US think tank

As of April 20, 2018, as many as 632,219 Indians with their spouses and minor children were in the waiting line for the green card.

The shortest wait is for the highest skilled category for EB-1 (employment based) immigrants with “extraordinary ability”. The waiting period for these applicants will be “only” six years, the Institute said in its latest report.

According to the USCIS office, there are as many as 34,824 Indian applicants under the EB-1 category. Along with their 48,754 spouse and children, 83,578 Indians are in line for the visa cards under EB-1 category.

The EB-3 applicants — those with bachelor’s degrees— might have to wait almost 17 years, the report said. As of April 20, there were 54,892 Indians in this category. Clubbed with 60,381 spouses and children, the total number of applicants waiting for green card in EB-3 category are 1,15,273.

However, the biggest backlog is for EB-2 workers, who have advanced degrees. “At current rates of visa issuances, they will have to wait 151 years for a green card. Obviously, unless the law changes, they will have died or left by that point,” PTI quoted the Cato Institute.

According to the USCIS, there were 2,16,684 primary Indian applicants under EB-2 category and 2,16,684 spouses and children, thus making a total of 4,33,368.

This is primarily because of the existing laws which impose per-country-limit of seven per cent.

Overall, 306,400 primary Indian applicants are waiting for their green cards. Clubbed with their spouses and children numbering 325,819; as many as 632,219 Indians in all are waiting for their green cards.

In 2017, only 22,602 applicants from India were issued the legal permanent residency cards. Of these, 13,082 were in the EB-1 category, 2,879 in EB-2 category and 6,641 in Eb-3 category, according to the latest USCIS figures.

The think-tank said that the green card allocation is not based on the backlog, so 69 per cent of the backlog is in the EB-2 category, but it received only 13 per cent of the green cards issued in 2017.

(With PTI inputs)