Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 or HR 1044 16/07/2019 – Posted in: Daily News
FAIRNESS FOR HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS ACT OF 2019
For: Preliminary & Mains
Topics covered: Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, Proposed amendments, impacts on Indians, Green Cards and their significances
News Flash
The US House of Representatives has passed legislation that removes the seven percent country-cap on Green Card applicants.
The bill titled ‘Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019’ or ‘HR 1044’ now needs to be passed by the Senate and get approved by the President.
Highlights
- This bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas.
- It eliminates the seven percent cap for employment-based immigrant visas.
- It also removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China.
Negative Impact
Indian IT experts, a large portion of whom are highly skilled and gone to the US mainly on the H-1B work visas, are the most terrible sufferers of the present immigration system which imposes a seven percent country quota on allotment of the coveted Green Cards or permanent legal residency.
Significance, if the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act passed
- Lifting the per-country cap would mainly benefit professionals from countries like India, for whom the wait for Green Card is more than a decade.
- The bill also establishes transition rules for employment-based visas from Financial Year 2020-22 by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas.
- Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85 percent shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country.
- The bill will create a first-come, first-serve system providing certainty to workers and families.
- The bill enables US companies to flourish and compete in a global economy as they hire the brightest people to create products, services, and jobs—regardless of where they were born.
- This bill would do nothing to move the current employment-sponsored system toward a more merit-based system.
What is a Green Card?
- A green card is also known as ‘Permanent Resident card’.
- It allows a non-US citizen to live and work permanently in America.
- Green Card holders can qualify for US citizenship generally after three to five years.
How to get a Green Card?
- First, an immigrant petition has to be made to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
- Skilled migrants from India typically require their employers to fill the I-140 form at this stage.
- Once the petition is approved, a Green Card application has to be filed with the USCIS or a visa application has to be made with the US State Department.
- Finally, a decision regarding the application is made only after an interview.
Green Card Categories
Categories of employment-based visas under which Indian professionals are known to apply are the:
- ‘EB-1’, or priority workers with extraordinary ability
- ‘EB-2’ or those holding advanced degrees
- ‘EB-3’ or skilled workers.
The EB-2 category generally sees the most number of applicants.
What the amendment means
- A change in the existing law can mean that immigrants from countries like India and China seeking permanent residency could expect shorter wait times.
- Indian IT professionals, who under the existing law would have to wait up to 70 years as some studies suggest, can now hope for a fairer system with lesser processing time.
- Apart from removing caps for employment-based Green Cards, caps for family-based categories have also been increased to 15%.
Source: Indian Express
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