Washington: many people stuck for years within the employment-based positive identification backlog within the US, including a large number of Indians, can hope for a lawful permanent residency in America by paying a supplemental fee if a replacement House bill is passed into law.
The move, if included within the reconciliation package and passed into law, is predicted to assist thousands of Indian IT professionals who are currently stuck in an agonising positive identification backlog.
A positive identification , known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, may be a document issued to immigrants as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently within the US.
According to the committee print released by the United States House of Representatives of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigration, an employment-based immigrant applicant with a “priority date that’s quite 2 years before” can suits permanent residence without numerical limits by paying a “supplemental fee of USD 5,000.”
The fee is USD 50,000 for the EB-5 category (immigrant investors). The provisions expire in 2031, the Forbes magazine reported.
For a family-based immigrant who is sponsored by a US citizen and with a “priority date that’s quite 2 years before”, the fee for getting a positive identification would be USD 2,500.
The supplement fee would be USD 1,500 if an applicant’s priority date isn’t within two years but they’re required to be present within the country, consistent with the committee print. This fee would be additionally to any administrative processing fee paid by the applicant.
However, the bill doesn’t contain permanent structural changes to the legal immigration system, including eliminating country caps for green cards or increasing the annual quotas of H-1B visas.
Before becoming law, the provisions would need to pass the Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives and therefore the Senate and be signed by the president, the report said.
According to a report in CBSNews, if successful, the legalisation plan would allow undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries, farmworkers and other pandemic-era essential workers to use for permanent US residency, or green cards.
Reacting to the bill, David J Bier, Immigration policy analyst at Cato Institute, said, “employment-based applicants can adjust if they need waited 2 years from their priority date… this is often almost like abolishing the EB caps for adjustment applicants who pays $5K. Awesome!”
Basically, this bill will help a couple of legal immigrants abroad indirectly, but the most purpose is integration of existing immigrants. That’s a noble cause, but the immigration/migration a part of immigration reform is simply overlooked . No new pathways for workers, same system,” he tweeted.
US Congressmen, including Indian-American Raja Krishnamoorthi had last month urged their Congressional colleagues to support their move to employment-based positive identification backlog as a part of budget reconciliation.
A group of 40 US lawmakers, led by Krishnamoorthi, had written to Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi and Senate legislator Chuck Schumer, saying the budget reconciliation package provides relief to those individuals stuck within the employment-based positive identification backlog, thereby strengthening the economy within the process
