If US President Joe Biden’s proposed immigration bill is enacted, it would lead to a 35% annual increase in green card numbers according to an analysis by Boundless, an immigration firm. Boundless estimates that the number of immigrants obtaining lawful permanent residency or a green card would rise by nearly 375,500 each year to nearly 1.5 million in total if the U.S. Citizenship Act were enacted.
Indians would be the biggest beneficiaries of this increase as the largest increase is expected in the employment-based categories and the diversity visa program. If the bill goes through, an additional 80,000 advanced degree workers would be granted permanent residency, along with more than 78,000 “first preference” workers (people with “extraordinary ability,” university professors and researchers, and executives or managers at multinational companies). Indian citizens face the longest wait times for employment based green cards on account of country caps, with some studies pegging the wait time at between 80-150 years.
The green card backlog for employment-based immigrants in 2020 crossed 1.2 million applicants, the highest ever. Indians comprise about 68% of this, or about 800,000, according to data from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
“Just because the bill raises a visa cap does not necessarily mean that all of those green cards will be used in a given year,” said Doug Rand, Boundless co-founder and immigration policy expert. “If welcoming several hundred thousand more permanent residents to the United States each year sounds like a lot, it’s not, added Rand. He pointed out that countries like Canada and Australia offer permanent residency to more than twice as many immigrants as compared to the US on a population adjusted basis.
Proposed steps like spouses and minor children of permanent employees no longer counting towards the cap, along with PhDs from US universities in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) field not counting towards caps would all help increase the number of green cards available annually.
Source : https://m.economictimes.com/nri/migrate/president-bidens-proposed-immigration-bill-could-add-375000-more-green-cards-annually/amp_articleshow/81544670.cms