On July 19, 2021, Mr. Charlie Oppenheim, who is Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State, during a chat with Charlie session on YouTube concerning August Visa Bulletin announced that the Biden Administration (Government) has processed green card applications at such a slow pace that 100,000 green cards are in an imminent danger of going to waste.
Green card holders (lawful permanent residents) can permanently live and work in the United States of America. Current immigration law provides two primary routes to obtain lawful permanent residency — 1) Through sponsorship by family members; 2) Through sponsorship by employers. If fewer family-based green cards are issued than are allotted, the law requires that the unused family-based number from one year be added to the cap for employment-based green cards in the following year — in this case, an additional 120,000 slots (on top of the annual 140,000). However, those additional employment-based slots if aren’t used by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, they are lost forever.
According to the experts the delay in processing the lawful permanent resident (Green Card) applications may have resulted because of the following reasons:
- USCIS was not prepared to process the additional 120,000 employment-based applications in just 12 months, considering that it often takes much longer time in a normal year.
- Since lawful permanent resident applications are submitted manually in paper form, it caused delay in processing the applications at the mail rooms of USCIS since the mailroom staff must manually enter each applicant’s information into its system and issue a receipt notice (I-797).
- Green card applicant’s fingerprinting requirement for background checks lead to creation of a massive backlog since during the pandemic Trump administration closed all the fingerprinting sites for months.
The loss of 100,000 green cards will disproportionately harm Indian immigrants. That’s because while they make up about half of all lawful permanent resident applicants, federal law says immigrants from a single country usually cannot make up more than 7 percent of green cards in a year. As a result, many Indian immigrants at present face a lifetime wait, while individuals from other countries pass them in line. This once-in-a-lifetime chance will be lost for thousands waiting in the queue if the government fails to get the cards out the door by September 30, 2021.
Seeing that only 2 months are left to process 100,000 green card applications, the Biden administration would need to take extreme action to work through the backlog.
We will regularly update the blog as soon as any new information is available.
Disclaimer
This article aims to provide new information concerning potential 100,000 green cards going to waste if not issued by September 30, 2021. This article, under no circumstances, acts as legal advice; therefore, for any immigration questions, please contact your Attorney or the Ahluwalia Law Offices, P.C. (Team ALO).
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