Important Facts For Prelims
Green Card Cap Relaxed
- 12 Jul 2019
- 2 min read
The US House of Representatives has passed the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act or HR1044, that removes the 7% country-cap on Green Card applicants.
- This bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% of the total number of such visas available that year to 15% and eliminates the 7% cap for employment-based immigrant visas.
- Currently, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services rules: No more than 7% of the visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year.
- The act if becomes a law, Indians would be the biggest beneficiaries of such a move.
- Indian IT professionals, who come to the US mainly on the H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a 7% per country quota on allotment of the Green Card or permanent legal residency.
- Further, Donald Trump's policy of ‘Buy American, Hire American’ has resulted in numerous legal and administrative changes aimed at discouraging Indian tech workers’ immigration.
- Lifting the per-country cap would mainly benefit professionals from countries like India, for whom the wait for Green Card is more than a decade.
