Biden to address delays in Green Card processing

Washington: US President Joe Biden wants to address the inordinate delays in the processing system of the Green Card, the White House has said, a move that will benefit many Indians working in America on the H1B visa.

A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently in the US. Indian IT professionals, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on the H1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the coveted Green Card or permanent legal residency.

"The president absolutely wants to address the delays in the Green Card processing system as well," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news conference on Friday.

She was responding to a question on the wastage of some 80,000 unused employment-based Green Card numbers, as the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is unable to allocate them to several million people waiting in line for a Green Card. The inordinate delay in the Green Card process of hundreds and thousands of talented Indian technology professionals, at times running into several decades, is one of the major issues of concern among the Indian-Americans and their dependent children living here.

The H1B visa, the most sought after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.