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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