The Biden Administration Let Over 200,000 Green Cards Go to Waste This Year

The Biden administration didn’t concern greater than 200,000 everlasting resident visas (or “inexperienced playing cards”) that have been allotted in fiscal yr 2021 for immigrants sponsored by U.S. employers or members of the family.

Roughly 150,000 visas for family-based immigrants and as many as 80,000 visas for employment-based immigrants had gone unused by September 30, which was the final day of the 2021 fiscal yr.

This falls drastically in need of the whole variety of inexperienced playing cards—675,000—that the federal government can concern annually. Out of this complete, 480,000 visas are reserved for “household desire” immigrants; 140,000 for employment-based immigrants; and 55,000 for Range Visa lottery winners.

This marks the second yr in a row that over 100,000 family-preference visas have gone unused. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted U.S. embassies and consulates overseas to shut, which quickly halted immigrant visa processing. As well as, the Trump administration used the pandemic as a pretext to implement a ban on the issuing of many immigrant visas. In consequence, 122,000 family-preference visas went unused and have been added to the 2021 cap on employment-based visas, which raised the whole to 262,000.

Embassies and consulates have reopened since then, and the Biden administration lifted Trump’s immigrant visa ban. The rise within the variety of employment-based visas truly offered a uncommon alternative for the administration to make a sizeable dent within the large backlog of circumstances.

However the Biden administration was unable to hurry up processing sufficiently to fulfill the 2021 cap on both family- or employment-based immigrant visas. Continued price range challenges and mismanagement at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies additional harm the administration’s probabilities of hitting the mark.

The 150,000 unused family-preference visas have been added to the fiscal yr 2022 cap on employment-based visas, bringing the whole to 290,000. However the unused employment-based visas from fiscal yr 2021 will stay misplaced with out Congressional motion.

The federal authorities’s repeated failure to fulfill the annual caps on immigrant visas is worsening the backlog of inexperienced card functions. As of 2020, there have been greater than 9 million inexperienced card candidates caught within the backlog—about 7.5 million on the family-based aspect and 1.6 million on the employment-based aspect.

A significant motive the backlogs are so giant is the per-country cap on immigration. Beneath present immigration regulation, the variety of immigrants from anybody nation can’t be better than 7% of the whole variety of immigrants who come to the US in a single yr. This arbitrary cap doesn’t account for the robust social and financial relationships that the US has with sure nations.

As an example, the 7% cap doesn’t come near assembly the demand from U.S. residents and Lawful Everlasting Residents who need to deliver members of the family from Mexico to the US. The cap additionally doesn’t accommodate the demand amongst U.S. employers for expert staff from India. In consequence, family-based inexperienced card candidates from Mexico and employment-based inexperienced card candidates from India face wait instances of a few years earlier than a everlasting visa turns into obtainable to them.

As of October 2021, many family-based candidates from Mexico have been ready for greater than 20 years. Many employment-based candidates from India have been ready between seven and 10 years.

If the sluggish tempo of inexperienced card processing continues, immigrants will doubtless see their wait instances soar within the years forward. Congress must act earlier than extra folks lose obtainable inexperienced playing cards and the backlogs worsen.