Indians need 134 years to get Green Card, Pakistanis just 2: Immigration expert

The waiting time for Indians applying for employment-based green cards has now stretched to up to 134 years. The long waiting time was recently highlighted by an Indian-American immigration advocate, who took to social media to point out structural flaws in the US immigration system, which fails to account for the large number of skilled Indian immigrants who arrive each year.

In a post on X, Sidharth, founder of the American Advocacy Council, stated that many Indians remain on the H-1B programme for years not by choice but because of compulsion. He argued this was because of flaws within the green card system that created a massive backlog of Indian applicants stretching for decades, while applicants from other nations like Pakistan and Somalia are able to get their cards within two years or less after applying.

"It is not because Indians love being on temporary visas," he wrote. "It is because the Green Card system will not let them leave the temp visa program," he added.

The Green Card, which is divided into categories like the Diversity Visa Lottery (which Indians are excluded from), Employment Based (EB)-1, EB-2 among others, is among the most coveted visas for immigrants as it practically grants them the same status and rights as American citizens except the right to vote.

This comes amid the waiting time for Indians applying for green card visa categories like the EB-2 visa, which will extend beyond a decade or even more.

WHY INDIANS WAIT DECADES FOR A GREEN CARD?

According to a report by the US-based Cato Institute, Indian applicants face the longest wait for a green card.

This is because of Section 202 of the Immigration and ity Act, which establishes the 7% per-country cap on family-sponsored and employment-based green cards. This law ensures no single country's natives receive more than 7% of the total annual employment-based or family-sponsored visa quotas. That works out to roughly 25,620 Employment Based slots per country across all EB categories.

However, taking into account that India sends far more skilled workers, especially in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories, its applicants quickly exceed the 7% cap and are pushed into a massive queue. For context, EB-2 applicants are those with advanced degrees (masters level), while EB-3 applicants are usually skilled professionals with the requisite certification.

According to the Cato Institute report, of the 1.8 million backlogs for EB visas in 2023, 1.1 million, or 68%, were from India. The report also mentioned that the backlog for Indians could take as long as 134 years to clear, effectively making green card applications a lifetime wait for Indians.

More conservative estimates by the immigration consultancy, Acquest Advisors, state waiting times for the EB-2 and EB-3 categories for Indians extend to between 15 and 20 years, while those for priority visas, like the EB-5 (Investors and employment creators) and the EB-1 (Extraordinary ability) can go up to eight years.

This extensive backlog has continued even after attempts to pass legislation in 2023 by Congressional representatives, Indian-Americans Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Rich McCormick, who jointly introduced the Immigration Visa Efficiency and Security Act of 2023. This legislation would have phased out the existing 7% per-country limit on employment-based immigrant visas while increasing the 7% per-country limit on family-sponsored visas to 15%.

Writing on X, Sidharth stated the same, that despite India sending more skilled immigrants, the country "gets the same quota as Iceland". He also highlighted how EB applicants from other countries like Pakistan and Somalia, which send lesser numbers of skilled immigrants, have an average waiting time of two years or less, as they rarely exceed their 7% quota.

INDIANS NOT STUCK ON H-1B BY CHOICE

In his post, Sidharth also warned that the backlog among Indians for the EB category visas would have severe human consequences.

"Indians are not 'stuck' on H-1B visas by choice," he wrote. "They are trapped by a system that punishes demand from one country while granting green cards liberally to others." For context, to be eligible for the EB-2 and EB-3 categories (which most Indians apply for), applicants need to be able to prove they have a permanent job offer and labour certifications on hand. As a result, Indian applicants are forced to continue holding onto their H-1B visas for long periods of time to remain eligible.

He also claimed that "400,000 Indian applicants will die before they ever receive a green card." This is backed by a study by David J Bier of the Cato Institute, which states "new applicants from India will face a lifetime wait, and more than 400,000 will die before they receive a green card."

"About 424,000 employment-based applicants will die waiting, and over 90% of them will be Indians. Given that Indians are currently half of all new employer-sponsored applicants, roughly half of all newly sponsored immigrants will die before they receive a green card," the study states.

Without changes to the per-country cap or the overall number of employment-based green cards, analysts say the backlog for Indian professionals is likely to persist for decades. For thousands of skilled workers already in the queue, the prospect of permanent residency in the United States may remain uncertain well into the future.

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