Indians Waiting For Green Card: Be Ready For Long Waits!

It is already known that the vast majority of the Indian population travelling to the United States, goes there with the intention of settling down and finding better employment opportunities there.

But things are not looking straightforward at this point in time as the United States authorities have started to crack down on permanent residency and also temporary job visa aspects.

The latest developments on this matter are suggesting that the Indian community who aspire to get green card in the US will have to be ready for long waits. Primarily, many Indian H-1B visa holders obtain permanent residence which is the green card, through the same employer-sponsored employment-based process as other nationalities.

This is categorised primarily based on EB-2 for advanced degrees and exceptional ability or EB-3 for skilled professionals. Notably, Indian nationals dominate the H-1B program with typically 70-75% of approvals in recent years.

This large pool means that even with long waits, thousands still receive green cards annually through employment-based channels. In 2023, about 28,570 Indian nationals obtained employment-based green cards.

Over recent years, USCIS has approved hundreds of thousands of I-140 petitions for Indians. While this might sound as a promising number, this was a thing in the past.

There is a considerable backlog in the number of green cards that are being processed these days. While the employers are also not actively investing in foreign assets, which chances of the normal Indian population outside the extraordinarily skilled zone are likely to find it hard to get the green card henceforth.