A US President's advisory council has accepted the request that more than 230,000 unused green cards for family and work categories since 1992 be recovered, which might help thousands of Indian-Americans who are waiting for their green cards. A Green Card, often referred to as a Permanent Resident Card, is a legal document given to immigrants in the US as proof that they have been granted permission to live there permanently.

According to Indian-American entrepreneur ajay Bhutoria, a member of President Biden's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, this includes the recapture of more than 2,30,000 unused employment-based green cards from 1992 to 2022 and processing a portion of these every fiscal year in addition to the annual limit of 140,000 for this category.

According to him, the initiative "Recapture Unused Green Cards and Prevent Future Green Card Waste" seeks to alleviate bureaucratic delays in the Green Card application procedure and offer assistance to people holding up backlogs.

Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permission to award a set number of family- and employment-based immigration visas each year. He stated that due to administrative delays, the number of available green cards was not fully utilized, which resulted in a buildup of unused green cards over time. Bhutoria put out two important strategies to address this.

First, from 1992 through 2025, unused green cards for family and job categories should be recovered by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State. In addition to the yearly maximum of 140,000 for the employment-based category, this includes processing a part of the more than 230,000 unused employment-based green cards that were recaptured from 1992 to 2022.

Second, even if the appropriate documentation cannot be processed in that fiscal year, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should establish a new policy to ensure that all green cards, up to the yearly limit, are still accessible to qualified immigrants. The new policy should be implemented retrospectively to reclaim any unused green cards.

Bhutoria pointed out that his suggestion stresses the harm that unused green cards do to people, families, and the US economy. According to Bhutoria, the unutilized green cards reflect missed chances for the nation and rising backlogs, particularly hurting Indian-American, Filipino-American, and Chinese-American families.

Furthermore, temporary employees on H-1B visas are limited in their movement and able to contribute less to the US economy due to the lack of a Green Card. When they turn 21, the children of these temporary employees run the possibility of losing their immigration status, he warned.

He said that his suggestion is consistent with measures put forth in the 117th congress to recover green cards that US Citizenship and Immigration services (USCIS) had previously refused to grant as a result of procedural mistakes.

He stated that by reclaiming these useless green cards, the economy might gain billions of dollars, the queue of families waiting for green cards could be shortened, and pointless administrative restrictions on legal immigration could be lessened.
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Indian Americans

S Venkateshwari

09/07/2023 11:08 AM