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US President Joe Biden believes that the modernization of the immigration system is important and long overdue, and this includes taking steps to ensure that highly qualified workers can remain in the country, the White House has said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden reversed a policy issued by his predecessor that blocked many Green Card applicants from entering the US, a move that will benefit many Indians working on an H-1B visa in America. A Green Card is a document issued to immigrants to the US as proof that the bearer has been granted the privilege of permanent residence, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card.
At her daily news conference on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, “The president believes that modernizing our immigration system is important and long overdue, and that includes taking steps to help ensure that highly skilled workers can stay in the country and can stay in the country through the proper processes.”
A day after Biden issued a proclamation reversing the decision of his predecessor, Donald Trump, she said, “So, we are eager to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to do that.”
The worst sufferers of the current immigration system, which imposes a seven percent per country quota on the allocation of the coveted Green Card or permanent legal residency, are Indian IT professionals, most of whom are highly qualified and come to the US primarily on H-1B work visas.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that enables U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialized professions requiring theoretical or technical expertise and is the most sought after among Indian IT professionals. Technology companies rely on it to hire tens of thousands of employees every year from countries such as India and China.
Biden, reopening the country to people seeking green cards or legal permanent residence in his proclamation on Wednesday, said that the policy of former President Donald Trump did not advance the interests of the United States.
On the other hand, it hurts the United States, including by preventing family members of certain U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents from joining their families here,” he said.”
“In the United States, it also damages industries that use talent from around the world. And it hurts people who have been chosen to apply for, and those who have also received, immigrant visas through the Diversity Visa Lottery Fiscal Year 2020, “Biden, one of the Democrats, said.
Trump, a Republican, issued a ban last year, saying it was necessary because of the coronavirus pandemic to protect US workers in the midst of high unemployment. Currently, the US faces a backlog of almost 473,000 applications for qualified family-based Green Cards. As a result of Trump’s ban on issuing green cards, as many as 120,000 preferred family-based visas have been lost. But this came as a big boon to the issuance of job-based green cards, primarily for H-1B visas.
As a result, in the last few months of the Trump administration, thousands of Indian IT professionals who painstakingly waited for their Green Card got their legal permanent residency.
