How S386 bill can benefit Indian Green Card applicants

Washington: Indian who are applying for Green Cards have to wait for 195 years due to the backlog. This wait time is likely to increase to 450 years by 2030.

Per-country cap

Currently, the wait time for the applicants depends on their country of origin as there is a numerical limit per country for issuance of Green Card.

Due to the cap, applicants from India and China are forced to wait for years.

In order to remove this cap, both chamber of Congress brought different bills. House of Representative introduced HR 1044 whereas, the Senate brought S386.

S386 bill

Recently, S386 bill which is formally known as “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019” trends on Twitter.

The intention of the bill is to eliminate per-country caps to equalize the employment-based (EB) green-card backlog.

If the bill becomes legislation, it will help large number of Green Card applications of India and China.

Provisions of S386 bill

As per the provisions of the bill, there will be transition period of three years. During the first year, 15 percent of EB-2 and EB-3 visas will be reserved for applicants from the nations that are not affected by backlogs. In the second and third years, the reservation will be reduced to 10 percent.

However, the bill will add a restriction on the H1B visa.  It will make it mandatory for US employers to advertise the vacancies and try to find persons in the country to fill them before hiring an employee on an H1B visa.

Trump administration

As Trump administration is not backing the bill, it is unlikely that it will clear the Senate.

After Trump become the President of United States, the restrictions on immigration to the country is increasing day-by-day.

His administration is putting hurdles in H1B visas. Recently, it had also tried to put conditions on student visas.