US Bill to hasten green cards may soon get Senate hearing
US Bill to hasten green cards may soon get Senate hearing
New Delhi: AUS immigration Bill that would significantly reduce the wait time for Indian and Chinese green card applicants may soon be heard in the Senate, which reopens later this month. According to immigration analysts, it is the only immigration Bill that has any real chance of passing before American presidential elections later this year.
HR3012 is significant in that it is the first immigration Bill that has received such overwhelming bipartisan support among legislators in the recent years of attempts at immigration reform, according to Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at NYU school of law. Chishti also says that it is the only Bill that has any real chance of passing before the presidential elections later this year. “The big surprise of 2011 was that something on immigration, that has eluded any bipartisan support, has gained traction,” Chishti said. “There seems to be significant consensus on highly skilled immigrants that has remained unchanged despite the labour market outlook.”
Under the current system, the federal government limits the annual number of employer-sponsored green cards to 140,000, of which no more than 7% is allocated to any one country (including family members of sponsored applicants). Critics of the current system argue that the cap discriminates against highly skilled workers from countries where green card demand is high, such as China and India—which also represent a significant portion of green card applicants. A study published last October by the Washington-based National Foundation for American Policy found that Indian applicants for green cards from the EB2 category (highly skilled professionals with graduate degrees) faced waits of up to seven years, while Indians applying in the EB3 (skilled professionals with a college degree) could wait as much as 70 years due to the country caps.
Advocates of the Bill argue that eliminating the per-country caps would create a more equitable green card system by eliminating country-biased delays and making it first-come-first-served.
“If I am a new Indian person applying for a green card today, it is nearly impossible to get one,” said Aman Kapoor, co-founder of Immigrant Voice, a national non-profit that advocates the rights of highly skilled immigrant groups working in the US. “It means you cannot change (your) employer, your spouse cannot work, your children do not qualify for scholarships. You will be forced to leave.”
But critics contend that simply eliminating per-country caps is not in itself sufficient to fix the problem: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which represents workers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields globally, has been critical of the Bill, which it argues does not go far enough to fix the roots of the problem, and prefers a Bill that would increase the number of green cards allotted annually, in addition to removing caps.
“IEEE-USA doesn’t want Indians with advanced degrees who wish to become permanent US residents to have to wait for green cards at all,” said Keith Grzelak, IEEE-USA vice-president for government relations. “That’s why we’re supporting the elimination of per-country caps and the backlogs by increasing the overall number of EB visas.”
Additionally, Grassley has demanded that the Bill be amended to include legislation he proposed last year tightening restrictions and oversight on the H-1B programme, and additional protections for American workers. The Bill’s introduction when the Senate resumes later this month is largely dependent on whether majority leader Harry Reid believes he has the 60 votes necessary for cloture.
Even so, there is no guarantee it will pass. “This has the best shot,” said Chishti. “But if this doesn’t happen in the first quarter, the chances of Bills like this passing close to the election are dimmer and dimmer.”
malia.p@livemint.com
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First Published:10 Jan 2012, 11:42 PM IST
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