Millions of people stuck for years within the employment-based positive identification backlog within the US, including a large number of Indians, can hope for a lawful permanent residency in America by paying a supplemental fee if a replacement House bill is passed into law.
The move, if included within the reconciliation package and passed into law, is predicted to assist thousands of Indian IT professionals who are currently stuck in an agonising positive identification backlog.
A positive identification , known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, may be a document issued to immigrants as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently within the US.
According to the committee print released by the United States House of Representatives of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigration, an employment-based immigrant applicant with a “priority date that’s quite 2 years before” can suits permanent residence without numerical limits by paying a “supplemental fee of USD 5,000.”
The fee is USD 50,000 for the EB-5 category (immigrant investors). The provisions expire in 2031, the Forbes magazine reported.
For a family-based immigrant who is sponsored by a US citizen and with a “priority date that’s quite 2 years before”, the fee for getting a positive identification would be USD 2,500.
The supplement fee would be USD 1,500 if an applicant’s priority date isn’t within two years but they’re required to be present within the country, consistent with the committee print. This fee would be additionally to any administrative processing fee paid by the applicant.
However, the bill doesn’t contain permanent structural changes to the legal immigration system, including eliminating country caps for green cards or increasing the annual quotas of H-1B visas.
Before becoming law, the provisions would need to pass the Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives and therefore the Senate and be signed by the president, the report said.
According to a report in CBSNews, if successful, the legalisation plan would allow undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries, farmworkers and other pandemic-era essential workers to use for permanent US residency, or green cards.
Reacting to the bill, David J Bier, Immigration policy analyst at Cato Institute, said, “employment-based applicants can adjust if they need waited 2 years from their priority date… this is often almost like abolishing the EB caps for adjustment applicants who pays $5K. Awesome!”
“For EB5, it’s $50K fee. Even those that can’t afford the fees or who are abroad would enjoy freeing up this cover space for others. It’s unfair that the bill maintains the country caps as is, so Indians and Chinese are going to be the sole EB applicants required to pay the $5K/50K,” he said during a series of tweets.
He said that the bottom caps for diversity, family, and #H1B all remain an equivalent .
“Since H1B is that the feeder for many EB, that’s basically like keeping the EB cap an equivalent . No reforms to #H2A, #H2B, or other work programs, so nothing to assist unskilled workers/address the border,” he said.
“Basically, this bill will help a couple of legal immigrants abroad indirectly, but the most purpose is integration of existing immigrants. That’s a noble cause, but the immigration/migration a part of immigration reform is simply overlooked . No new pathways for workers, same system,” he tweeted.
US Congressmen, including Indian-American Raja Krishnamoorthi had last month urged their Congressional colleagues to support their move to employment-based positive identification backlog as a part of budget reconciliation.
A group of 40 US lawmakers, led by Krishnamoorthi, had written to Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi and Senate legislator Chuck Schumer, saying the budget reconciliation package provides relief to those individuals stuck within the employment-based positive identification backlog, thereby strengthening the economy within the process.
They argued that under current law, the American economy is unable to access the complete international talent pool of high-skilled workers already present and dealing within the us today – indeed, the very scientists, inventors, health care workers, entrepreneurs, and other professionals that give the US its edge over its global competitors today.
“This is because there’s effectively a positive identification ban on high-skilled immigrants from India, China, and other countries with large populations of workers wanting to remain in America and power forward our economy and social safety net programs for generations to return ,” they said.
This arbitrary cap is keeping a number of the world’s most talented individuals from permanently calling America home, encouraging them to require their inventions, expertise, and creativity to other countries instead.
Most workers within the employment-based positive identification backlog are already within the us on temporary nonimmigrant visas, like the H-1B visa for workers in specialty occupations, that are renewable but greatly restrict beneficiaries from reaching their full potential.
Right now, no quite seven per cent of employment-based green cards are available to individuals from one country, which has created a decades-long backlog for would-be immigrants from India and China.
“Indian nationals face a very daunting backlog of 80 years, and an anticipated 200,000 will die before achieving lawful permanent resident status,” the lawmakers said.
H-1B holders are unable to vary jobs or start their own businesses — despite the very fact that they need been shown to spice up overall productivity, wages, and new patents, they said.
The temporary nature of the H-1B visa forces beneficiaries to measure during a constant state of uncertainty, preventing them from becoming entrepreneurs, buying homes, employing more Americans, or otherwise fully establishing themselves as permanent fixtures within the American economy.