Indian Green Card Applicants Face Decade-Long Backlogs in Key Employment Categories

Washington — Indian professionals seeking employment-based U.S. Green Cards continue to face backlogs stretching more than a decade in several major categories, despite some movement at the start of the new fiscal year, according to the State Department’s October Visa Bulletin.

The largest gap remains in the employment-based second preference, or EB-2, category, which is commonly used by professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability.

For applicants from India, the EB-2 final action date is Nov. 1, 2013. For most other countries, the corresponding date is Jan. 1, 2025, leaving Indian applicants more than 11 years behind.

A similar backlog exists in the EB-3 category for skilled workers and professionals. India’s final action date is Jan. 1, 2014, compared with May 15, 2024, for most countries.

The dates do not represent the exact amount of time every applicant will wait. Instead, they determine which priority dates are currently eligible for final action on permanent residency applications, depending on visa availability and other requirements.

Some Indian applicants saw improvement with the beginning of fiscal 2027.

India’s EB-1 final action date, which covers priority workers including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers and certain multinational executives, advanced to Feb. 1, 2023.

The October bulletin also restored visa availability for EB-2 India after the category became unavailable near the end of the previous fiscal year when its annual allocation was exhausted.

The State Department said the release of fiscal 2027 immigrant visa numbers allowed filing and final action dates to advance in several categories.

Despite that movement, the latest figures show that India’s employment-based backlog remains substantial even after a new annual allocation becomes available.

Under the separate “Dates for Filing” chart, EB-1 India is at July 1, 2024, while EB-2 and EB-3 India are both at Jan. 15, 2015.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determines each month whether applicants seeking adjustment of status from within the United States may use the Dates for Filing chart instead of the more restrictive Final Action Dates chart.

The difference is important because a filing date can allow an eligible applicant to submit an adjustment-of-status application, while the final action date determines when an immigrant visa number is available and the case can be approved.

India is one of four countries currently considered oversubscribed under the U.S. preference immigration system, along with mainland China, Mexico and the Philippines.

The State Department said visas are allocated, to the extent possible, according to applicants’ priority dates. When demand exceeds the numerical limit for a country or immigration category, a cutoff date is established.

Federal immigration law limits the number of employment-based immigrant visas available each year and also restricts the share that can be issued to nationals of any one country. The worldwide employment-based preference limit is at least 140,000 visas annually.

Those country limits have had a particularly significant impact on Indian applicants because of the large number of Indian professionals in the employment-based immigration system.

As a result, many remain in temporary immigration status for years while waiting for their priority dates to become current.

The State Department publishes the Visa Bulletin monthly, and cutoff dates can advance, remain unchanged or move backward depending on demand and the number of immigrant visas available. (Source: IANS)