Green Card processing: White House looking into proposals to reduce time

Washington: The White House is looking into a presidential commission's recommendations to cut the processing time for Green Card applications to just six months and to clear the backlogs by April 2023 in a move that could help hundreds of thousands of immigrant families, especially those from China and India.

The President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders released its inaugural report on Friday. The report was approved on May 12 and transmitted to the President on August 24 and the White House Domestic Policy Council is currently reviewing its recommendations before they can sent to President Joe Biden for his decision.

The report states because of Covid-19-related closures and staffing limitations as well as the continued effect of the 2017 travel bans, processing green cards up to the annual cap has been difficult.

It recommends that the Department of State's National Visa Center (NVC) facility should hire additional officers to increase its capacity to process Green Card application interviews by 100 percent in three months from August 2022, and by increasing Green Card applications and visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150 percent by April 2023, and reduce the current backlog by the end of 2023.