A group spearheading the cause of Indian high-skilled workers in the United States has launched a major campaign to visit the offices of more than 300 Senators and Representatives to seek speedy passage of legislation to end the “decades-long” wait for Green Cards for permanent residence.
The group, called “Skilled Immigrants in America”, announced plans to bring more than 500 high-skilled workers and their children who, it says, face the risk of being deported at age 21, despite they and their parents living legally in the US for years. An estimated 1.5 million high-skilled immigrants, predominantly from India, have been stuck in the US green card backlog. They all are “legally living in the United States with all proper paperwork, paying taxes over a decade, have approved green card petitions by USCIS/DHS and have heavily invested in the country,” the group says.
The group is seeking urgent passage of a legislative initiative by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Jeff Flake, who introduced last month the Immigration Innovation (I-Squared) Act that, among other things, proposes elimination of the present “per-country limit” in green cards that has hit Indian workers hard.
While high-skilled immigrants from other countries, including Britain, Russia, Mexico, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, can get their green card in just about 7 months after entering United States, a high-skilled Indian may have to wait for decades, it says, estimating that it can be as long 70 years in many cases.
“Do you know ‘H4 Dreamers’ (foreign-born kids of these high-skilled workers stuck in green card backlog) have to self deport at age of 21, if they fail to get visa under lottery system in spite of legally living in this country for almost their entire life?” the group says on its website.
The I-Square Act, besides increased access to green cards for high-skilled workers, proposes expansion of the H-1B visas programme in respect of industries in which there is a shortage of American labour, while at the same time addressing abuses to ensure that the H-1B programme is not used to outsource jobs or undercut American wages.
“Now more than ever, we need highly qualified workers with the skills employers need to succeed in the information economy,” Senator Hatch said at the time of introducing the bill. “The reforms included in the I-Squared Act are critical to fixing a broken US immigration system that has been unable to keep up with the needs of American employers,” Senator Flake said.