Waiting game.
LONGER LINES
The number of Indians left waiting for an American green card skyrocketed in 2019
February 17, 2020

By Ananya Bhattacharya
Tech reporter

The number of rejected US green card applications of Indians stood at the lowest in a decade last year at 1,352.

While that metric alone is impressive, it does not paint the full picture.

Nearly 7,000 green card applications by Indian alien workers were pending—almost 35 times the number in 2018, data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) show. The data refers to form I-140, which seeks to make an alien worker eligible for an immigrant visa based on employment.

Overall, with 56,608 green cards approved for Indian workers, the group received nearly half of all permanent residency permits issued in 2019. The number of applications being approved ticked up from last year but it was still well below 67,493 in 2016.

A losing battle
Indians face the worst backlog when it comes to getting a green card, thanks to a 7%-per-country cap on allocations each year. Nearly 800,000 workers and their families—most of them Indians—are waiting for employment-based green cards. USCIS is still processing applications from 2009; libertarian think tank CATO Institute estimates that the wait time for Indians with advanced degrees is 49 years.

A rampant concern is that these long queues may push Indian talent out of the US. “What does that ultimately mean? Valuable, skilled people decide they should leave because they’re never going to get what they had hoped for,” Bruce Morrison, a lobbyist and immigration attorney, told the Washington Post. Morrison wrote the 1990 bill that increased the number of employment green cards. “And valuable people don’t come because they figure our system is so broken they can’t see their way through it. Therefore, other countries bidding for these skilled workers get those workers. Companies in America move jobs abroad to employ those skills elsewhere. And American prosperity suffers.”

Already, Indian techies have started looking to Canada, Japan, and other countries with less cumbersome and more welcoming immigration processes.

In the US, the House of Representatives passed the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 bill to eliminate the annual per-country cap on employment-based immigrant visas in July 2019. However, it failed to pass the Senate vote. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s merit-based immigration plan to bump up the share of highly-skilled immigration from the current 12% to 57% could tip the scales, but it is still far from being implemented.

donald trump, ‪india‬, japan, trump, canada
READ THIS NEXT

An Indian couple has been buying land near a tiger reserve and letting the forest grow back
February 16, 2020Quartz India
RECOMMENDED STORIES

STAY KAYG0LDI
How not to steal $1.5 million: Inside an Instagram influencer’s alleged debit card scam
Quartz

QZ&A
Air India pilot recalls the “deathly quiet” in Wuhan amidst coronavirus evacuation
Quartz India

FIGHTING IT OUT
How an Indian state successfully fought and contained the deadly coronavirus
Quartz India

GOD OF SMALL THINGS
A Hindu god now has a reserved seat on an Indian Railways train
Quartz India

QUANTIFY
The Wuhan coronavirus has killed over twice as many people as the 2003 SARS epidemic
Quartz

WORRY LINES
India may have only three confirmed cases of coronavirus but Indians aren’t taking any chances
Quartz India

MONEY LAUNDERING, FOR REAL
China is literally cleaning its money to stop the spread of coronavirus
Quartz

FARE GAME
Uber’s new California commission caps only underscore the pricing opacity for drivers
Quartz

PAY UP
Africa’s rising “unsustainable” debt is driving a wedge between the World Bank and other lenders
Quartz Africa

THE LONGSHOTS
Your guide to the Republicans challenging Trump in the 2020 presidential race
Quartz

BREAK TIME
The psychological importance of wasting time
Quartz

TALL TALE
The age of the vertically shot blockbuster is upon us
Quartz

ALTERNATE REALITY
The racial dynamics between American women are flipped in a disorienting photo series
Quartz
Support Quartz and become a member. You have 2 free stories remaining this month.See my options
Close
Latest
Popular
Obsessions
Editions