If you live, work in America on a non-immigrant visa such as H1B Visa, L1 Visa and plan to apply for green card to become permanent resident in US, per country numerical limitation or cap is an important factor that determine how soon you will get your green card. Many efforts have been made in the past as bills in US House and Senate to remove such country caps for employment based green card applicants, but nothing made it through both of them and got signed by president to become law. In 2019, the same persistent effort for this cause, started in 116th Congress in the form of HR 1044 Bill in House to remove per country limits for employment based green card applications. We will summarize the key points in the bill, current status, its chances and next steps.
Latest Update from December 21st, 2020
HR 1044 was amended significantly in Senate and passed as well, read COMPLETE Summary of the HR1044 Bill Passed in Senate. But, after it arrived in House, the members did not agree to the changes and as of Dec 21, 2020 there is no agreement. It was not added to the Omnibus Spending Bill too and did not get voted. Rep Lofgren confirmed that this bill is not going to be worked on in the current Congress session and will be pursued in next Congress that starts in 2021. Check Latest Updates on HR1044 , S386 for full timeline and summary
Note : The below HR1044 version and details are before December 2nd, 2020. Check the latest passed HR 1044 bill at : COMPLETE Summary of the HR1044 Bill Passed in Senate.
What is HR 1044 Bill ? 5 key points in the H R 1044 Bill ?
HR 1044, which is also called as “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019”, is a bill introduced in the House (US House of Representatives) that is a resurrection of previous HR 392 Bill from 2017 -2018. As it is bill originated in House, it starts with H R that stands for House of Representatives. Below are the key summary points of the HR 1044 Bill to eliminate per country green card limits and details on the same.
1. Eliminate per country limit for Employment based petitions :
This is the most important point in the bill. Every year, as per INA 140,000 petitions are allocated for all employment based green cards categories. But today, there is a limit of 7% (9,800) per country for employment based green card petitions. Essentially, the main reason for the bill is that many believe that employment-based petitions should not be subject to per country limit, because that is a discrimination by nationality origin, when the core green card petition is based on employment, skills and not related to diversity or anything as such. Also, the rationale is that it is not fair to have 7% quota for a small country like Iceland with 338,000 population vs same 7% for a country like India with 1.339 billion population. Below are the actual text screenshots from the HR 1044 bill and the reference from Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of section 1152 that has provision for per country green card limit. In the bill text, you can see, they would like to strike “Employment Based” and remove the ‘and’ clauses.
In the below INA 1152 Text, the text highlighted in RED is the one that is requested to be removed.
2. Increase per country limit for family sponsored petitions:
As you can see in the above bill text highlighted, the bill would like to change the limit of family sponsored green cards from 7 percent to 15 percent.
3. Transition Rules for Employment Based Petitions from FY 2020 to FY 2022:
In order to better transition and not have major two countries ( like India, China) take up everything, below are some of the rules
- For Fiscal Year 2020 ( Oct 2019 – Sept 2020) : 15% of employment based green cards should be allocated to immigrants from of two non-major foreign states ( like India, China). Basically, 15% reserved for rest of the countries and only 85% to be allocated to major countries like India, China.
- For Fiscal Year 2021 ( Oct 2020 – Sept 2021) : 10% of employment based green cards should be allocated to immigrants of two non-major foreign states ( like India, China). Basically, 10% reserved for rest of the countries and only 90% to be allocated to major countries like India, China.
- For Fiscal Year 2022 ( Oct 2021 – Sept 2022) : 10% of employment based green cards should be allocated to immigrants of two non-major foreign states ( like India, China). Basically, 10% reserved for rest of the countries and only 90% to be allocated to major countries like India, China.
- After Fiscal Year 2022 ( From October 2022), there will NOT be any reservations for non-major foreign states.
4. Per Country levels in the Transition Rules for Employment Based from FY 2020 to FY 2022:
- Reserved Visas: In the above mentioned reservation of 15% and 10% for non-major states during transition period, the number of visas for any foreign country (that is a non-major state) shall not exceeded 25% or 2% for dependent areas ( these are not independent countries, but dependent colonies, parts of certain countries like French Polynesia of France. Read on State.gov – Dependent areas ) of the total reserved visas. Meaning that any country that is part of the non-major countries list (not like India, China) cannot take up more than 25% of the total reserved visas/green cards.
- Unreserved Visas: During the transition period of FY 2020, 2021, 2022 as mentioned above, for the all the un-reserved visas ( basically 85% in FY 2020, 90% in FY 2021, FY 2022), not more than 85% of visas should be allocated to single country. Essentially, they are telling that of the un-reserved portion cannot be taken up by one country alone and the maximum they can take is 85% of the quota. E.g. India or China can only take up 85% maximum from the 85% pool in FY 2020
- Special Rule to prevent Unused Visas : During the transition period of FY 2020, 2021 and 2022, if any of the visas are left over or unused due the clauses as listed above like per country levels, and reservations, then such visas should be given to remaining ones in line without applying such restrictions.
5. Current Approved Beneficiaries in line – Transition Rule:
To prevent harm to anyone waiting for green card, a clause is added. It says that, if you are already waiting in line for Green Card with approved I-140, you would either have same or shorter wait time, after this bill is passed. The intent of this clause is not to harm or impact people already waiting in line for Green Card with priority date. The goal of the clause is to prevent someone applying today for I-140 and getting ahead of someone, who has been waiting in line before the passing of this new rule.
For Official Text, info, status Check Official HR 1044 bill text on Congress.gov
News Updates, Current Status of HR 1044 Bill :
We are tracking all the news separately as it is tracked by date and is lengthy. For easy review and reading, it is a separate article. Check out article : Latest news updates on the S.386 and HR 1044
What are the next steps for HR 1044 Bill ?
The typical next steps are to go through similar process in Senate, there will be debate and voting. The high level process is that, it is now referred to a Senate Judiciary committee as per latest September 17th update and then goes to the floor for debate and voting in senate and then to be signed by president. Thought this sounds simple it has a long way to go. It has to be passed in the same form, to make it further, if any changes, then again it comes back…
As of September 27th, 2019, the HR 1044 Bill was amended with text from S386 and other changes as requested by Senator Grassley and Sen Rand Paul. It was brought on the floor for Unanimous consent and was blocked by Sen. Perdue. Later it was supposed to be again tried on Senate floor, but Sen. Lee believes that it will be blocked again by Sen. Durbin, so it was not brought on to the Senate floor. We need to wait and see, if something happens.
What are the Chances for H4 1044 Bill to become law or pass in Senate, get signed by president ?
The process is US Senate is not as straightforward as in House. The bill to get to voting first it needs support in the respective committee and pass voting there or sometimes maybe tabled as well. Once that is done, it will go through the senate floor for debate. Now is the tricky part, to end the debate in Senate, you need unanimous consent of all the senators (100 of them) to go for vote. Usually, if any one or group of senators want to stop voting, they can put a hold on the bill. You need about 60 votes to get out of that tricky hold situation with the process of ‘Cloture’. Read How does a Bill becomes Law in US Congress to understand the complexities in the process.
Though the bill had a majority vote in House and got passed there, it does not have same support in Senate. Similar Bill S 386 Bill introduced in Senate has 34 cosponsors, but it does not have majority of 60 to get out of that hold situation. There were agreements done with Sen Paul, Sen Grassley and Sen Durbin to go to Unanimous Consent after it was blocked couple of times. Now, the situation is that Sen. Durbin wants to increase the green cards numbers, which Sen. Lee does not want to do as it could kill the bill. So, as of now, there is one Senator not agreeing to it….Also, we do not know, if others may object, if it is tried for Unanimous consent again….This is the typical situation in Senate, where anyone can object and you will have a hard time, if you do not have majority…
So, despite the progress so far, the odds of the bill to go all the way in its current form is as it is in the form it exists today is still low.
Anyways, once, it gets through both House and Senate in same form, then it goes to President, which can be vetoed by President as his plans are for Merit Based Green Cards by Points System eliminating current categories for Green Cards. It has a long way to go…We will keep everyone posted.
What do you think of the HR 1044 Bill ? What do you think are its chances ? Add your thoughts.
This HR 1044 bill is the most UN-AMERICAN bill ever written by politicians, who are the beneficiary of top IT companies in US. The bill is unfair, brutal, and non sense to the rest of the world, which makes America vulnerable to two highly populated countries (Chine and India), less diverse, and less intelligent in a short term or long term. Our politicians in the past were smart enough to understand the benefit of having a per country cap for immigration act in order to keep America safe, diverse and fair to everybody. Removing per country cap and NOT increasing the number of green card limit per year is simply insane and harmful for America, especially with the trade war and sensitive political climate with China and India currently.
Putting America first, we need to enforce an immigration policy that is fair to all races and still focuses on America’s needs first, not Chinese or indian workers first. There is NO problem whatsoever with having a cap per each country in our immigration act. The backlog can simply be lifted by increasing the number of allowed green card per year and not deteriorating the immigration act by this non sense HR 1044. I hope, Senator Dublin would keep his hold on this bill and never approve it, as this is a very dangerous bill for the safety and diversity of America.
God bless Senator Dublin and his efforts to not pass this non sense bill.
Coming from someone who can’t spell Senator “Durbin” correctly and claim themselves as Americans. You trolls should come out and identify yourselves if you have the guts. Stop pretending to be American when you clearly are not.
I don’t really understand how this bill got passed in the congress. I understand the pain of Indian and Chinese applicants. The government could do a little favor increasing the CAP to around 15% for each of them and leave 60% for the rest of the world, and that would I think be relevant. Removing the CAP will just make the immigration system vulnerable and IT job market in the US be controlled by Indians and Chinese. And diversity will become a joke. Let’s be realistic and do something reasonable.
This bill doesn’t solve the problem as mentioned. I understand the pain with Indian IT brothers but this bill is never going to solve the backlog. Instead every nation will start suffering from it. We should solve the root cause of this problem. 85% if H1B is used by Indian IT workers and they already know about this backlog before coming to US. Lets make 7% cap in H1B for all countries and unused H1B goes to India like capping in GC. This will balance the system. Say no to sr386 and hr1044.
The per country cap — which is really distribution, and not a limit on individual source countries — was enacted in 1965 to ensure that American immigration is open to individuals from all countries. A great irony of the way the current debate is so polarized — again, the result of a deliberate strategy by tech employers to spread false claims — is that the per-country distribution system in 1965 help to create significant immigration from India and many other countries in the first place. The “per country cap” replaced a quota system that explicitly discriminated against all nations outside of Europe (including India), and even within Europe, e.g. Italy got far less visas than northern European nations.
Proponents for this ill-considered legislation often ask “Why should India with more than a billion people be limited to the same cap for green cards as Iceland, with 300,000?” We know that’s not how it works: the misleading “cap” rhetoric claims that no nation can get more than 7% of the total. Yet over the 10 years from 2007–17, Indian nationals received 280,523 employment-based green cards; Chinese nationals, 130,248; South Korean nationals, 115,274, and Philippine nationals, 84,792 green cards. China has a substantially larger population, yet workers born in India received more than twice the number of employment-based green cards than workers born in China. That India has gotten more than twice as many green cards as the world’s largest nation does not indicate a system biased against people born in India.
If this bill is really good and fair, why it requests unanimous consent? why not have a public debate? Just curious.
That’s because of the way this world works Max. It’s because fairness does not have a place in this Trumpian world any more. It’s because in this world, folks would not hesitate to cause severe suffering to other people who don’t look like them knowingly and willingly if it means they themselves get even a small benefit out of it and misrepresent reality to cry foul. It’s because people don’t see each other as people anymore. It’s my people vs their people.
This has been publicly debated many times in the congress before and if it ever goes to a debate, so many groups lobby to retain their unfair advantage at the expense of the other people who they don’t care about. Iranians, mexicans and every country that stand to suffer a slightly longer wait-time to get their green card in a fair way will buy off senators to prevent this from happening. They are rather be okay with Indians suffering decades long backlog than wait an extra year or two for them to get their green card in a fair way (while continuing to work on a visa of course).
Everyone knows the truth, but would rather spin stories in the media about how it’s taking jobs away than be fair. This is the only way fairness will win without getting slandered by false news stories.
Let’s think of why you want to remove country quota on green card and why we made country quota.
If we remove this quota,, 99.9% of green card applicants may be from India or china.
Why you would like to do it?
It is definitely for someone…who?
IT business..
Now, H1b lottery has severe issue,,,,too high competition to get one because Indian staffing companies file too many petition for Hib(even multiple application with multiple company….), which is tricky.
If you think India or china applicant is discriminated by this country quota, it is because their applicants are too….too many, compared to other country…which means, if we open them, it looks like we will import only india or china applicants. A number of other country’s applicants who will get a green card will be quite small number.
What you want to do?
India population is 1.368 billion (1,369,751,381 ) as of Sept 2019.
the fact that india or china has 10 year backlog will tell you a lot of applicants. It is not simply ” they suffer too long backlog” but they are too many immigrant for only two countries.
I believe USA accounts for diversity. If remove this quota, there wont be diversity any more in this state.
h t t p s : //petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/petition-not-pass-bill-hr-1044-s386-fairness-high-skilled-immigrants-act-2019
Indian IT companies in the US only hire Indians that is the reason for the backlog.
This is a monopoly. This bill is a monopoly for a single country and a single major (IT). All people around the world with higher skills can not get a green card because of this Indian-IT monopoly. For more than a decade all of the people except Indians cannot get a green card, Chinese also cannot get a green card for more than 8 years.
No scientist from Europe cannot get a green card.
No US graduate scientist or medical doctor cannot get a green card for more than a decade because of this monopoly.
Interestingly No Indian scientists who recently take their PhD from the US cannot get the green card.
This bill will destroy the immigration policy for H1B. Because it does not consider the H1B holder who extends their visa based on country cap.
We should ask ourself who wants this bill be passed without hearing in the senate.
# No S386 #No S386 Monopoly
This is simple. American politicians who are supposed to be the custodians of American people and protect them , have agreed to sell them off in exchange of money from Indian Lobbyists like Immigration Voice. Very soon the whole work culture will become like the work culture in India, managers will prefer to hire the person who belongs to the same caste and community as his, managers will start taking bribes to promote people. In other words, all the filth from India will come to U.S.A and very soon we will become a third world country.
Thanks
Are you Indian?
Are you Indian? If yes, and living in USA with Green… Yellow… or Citizen.. then you might be doing same thing, what you have mentioned above.
Don’t be over possessive bro… chill… and caryon….
That’s an overblown assumption. Work culture can be significantly altered only if it’s an Indian company and hire managers from India thru L1A GC route. I don’t think H1B and OPT based managers will try to bring in nepotism. At the end of the day the American client needs their requirements to be worked as per their discretion and if nepotism brings in bad talent then that company will eventually lose business. Yes, nepotism exists and usually they bring in people thru back door but only after knowing that person can deliver.
Coming back to this bill, I think it’s a win win situation for all desis. We will be free from future H1B shackles and free to buy homes and create a great community. Companies like TCS, CTS will not be able to manhandle employees on basis of GC process. As of now, Sep 19, Senator Perdue has blocked unanimous consent passing and maybe he wants some numbers like Senator Rand had obtained for nurses. This may be sorted out by next week, hopefully. Any delays will only make this a public discussion and outlets like Breitbart will pressure some senators to block it again. Iranians are very much active in dismantling this bill and also some Brazilians. Apart from these two, I only found opposition from our desis who have gotten green cards and are on way to citizens. Too sad to know this. I hope they change their minds and help us to get thru. We would do the same for new comers.
The interesting part is the Rest of World people who opposing this Bill are already got GC or going to get GC in few months (they just came to USA few months) back and worrying about their own country people future , but Indian H1B people who already undergone in pain and waiting for last 10 years doesn’t care about this bill , They already adjusted with this pain. May be this country quota limit to be introduced on H1B visas , but they don’t do that, they know they will get more talents from India only. not from ROW.
any update or movement on this bill?
Indians and Chinese grads from US universities have gone ahead and made a lot of money for this country. So it makes sense to level the field for them. Remember this bill eliminates the 7% country limit not reserve the GCs for Indians and Chinese. If people from other countries have skills enough to get the job they go in the same pool. Economically it makes sense to pass this bill and make it fair for everyone.
HR 1044/S 386 is dead in the water. It is just a political game. Lobbyists make money through this bill and we all are bakra. This is just a carrot in front of Donkey or chicken piece in front of dog.
If somebody before entering a building knows that there is going to be a long queue and still persistent of joining the queue and then complains that queue is so long and been waiting for ages. For that person, I would ask being well aware that queue is long, why have you joined the queue?
Each one of h1b from India knows that about the country quota and still came, then standing in this queue is your own choice and decision. How come the choice you made and decision you took could br unfair to you? No body forces you to make this decision. Right?
If somebody from ROW while joining the queue is aware that the system is unfair for china and India and must be fixed soon, why s/he will complain when the queue is made fair for all?
There is some inaccuracy to that statement. People who joined queue say 8-10 years ago though the queue was 3-5 years not 10-15 years. They were ok with that wait for most part. You can’t expect wait time to double or triple and expect people who have already invested so much of their time here not to voice their opinion.
Would you say the same thing to people on overloaded buses/train in India? They know they are hanging outside and its _risky_ but they still do it. Can the bus driver go its the person’s own fault? People will do whats best for their interest even if it means risking their lives. 100s of people are literally risking their lives in small boats to reach European shores?
Kaka are you by any chance government employee in India/Pakistan or Bangladesh? Coz you definitely sound like one!
Based on this rule, ‘5. Current Approved Beneficiaries in line – Transition Rule: ‘, I have an approved I-140 now and my priority date is 2011 but now i am planning to transfer my H1b to a different company. And now new company will file my labor and I-140 again, if this bill passes before my new company file my I-140 then don’t i get my priority date with new I-140? Then will i become fresh person in line according to new bill because of my new I-140 is approved recently??
You carry your priority date, you don’t lose that.
Hey,
Sorry for hearing your issue.
But,,it is not quota issue but your country issue.
You know too many indian immigrate to USA. It is a fact that you suffer from long backlog.
Please do not avoid this fact.
Thanks for the sympathy but I think you are missing a crucial point.
Even in US elections, electoral votes are divided based on population/size of the state so with your analogy, al US states should have same number of electoral college votes?
I would ask you this, Each individual state of India is bigger than most of the countries in Europe.
Will your opinion be same if all the Europe is considered as a single country, they already have the same currency, and now they should have the same total 7% Quota.
I agree with every comment here but lets just consider that India has the largest youth population in the world
Does this bill decrease the green card time for the Indian youth to less than 10 years? The answer is NO.
For more than 10 years no new applicants can take the green card?
This bill monopolizes the green card only for the previous generation of Indians. This bill makes a global problem.
The problem of infinity Indian applicants for the NIW is an economical problem in India. Why the other country scientists who mostly graduated from a better university should lose their right to get a green card because of the economical problem inside India?
If the ROW produces really “better” candidates, there is a completely different process. Such real best and bright will not be affected. However, it’s another story for all sub-par other applicants from ROW, who so far had been piggybacking on this lacunae to fool the system.
@Kumar, What do you think about the possibilities passing this bill in Senate?
Thanks
I have written my opinion in the above article itself 🙂
My PD is in Feb 2013 EB3 , how long will take if rules are set and per country quota removed? just want to know.
Are you Indian? It may take 10 to 20 years. But if the bill accepted and the number of the Indians does not increase; it takes 8 to 10 years for everyone. But the problem is that the number of Indian applicants will extremely be increased after passing this bill in Senate; So if you apply two years later after the bill passes in the Senate, it again takes 10 to 15 years for you and the rest of the world to take the Green card.
A useless bill!!!
*The number of Indian applications from outside of the USA will increase because their petition goes to Texas service center that accepts the petitions with lower requirements than the Nebraska service center. Consider that India is the second populous country that its universities are rarely inside the best universities in the world.
Thanks Joe, I know some Indians most of the southern of the people use this H1B as Friendship visa, those people messed mostly. Stupid people messing systems here. I know some people their entire cousins friends and family on H1B, how possible those all get jobs by American companies after suddenly when they Graduate. Those jerks mess all and created back-log.
No international scientist from MIT or Harvard can take the green card for the next 15 years; because thousands of applicants from a small unknown university in India applied for the green card.
Is it FAIRNESS?
Should we put a high base salary to eliminate people who have abused H1 visa from unknown Indian University. Lets say putting a base salary of anywhere b/w 100K to 150K should help fix that problem.
Indians are smart people and they deserve to have the best things in the worlds. But this bill only makes the problem worse, Indians have already taken a large portion of green cards and this bill only motivates more Indians to apply for EB green cards and increase the waiting time to more than 10 to 15 years for all of the people in the world, even for the new generation of the Indian scientists. The problem becomes worse when we consider that they usually have more family members than other countries so more green cards should be issued for their family members who do not usually have high skills. The family members will take the normal American Jobs that do not need high skills.
This bill destroys the diversity of the scientist in American high tech companies. This bill monopolizes American technology for only one country. This bill conveys the problem of one country to all the countries in the world. This bill punishes the other country scientists because there are too many Indians in the waiting list. The root of the numerous Indian applications should be found, India is not the most populous country; why the number of their petitions is several times than other countries? what kind of benefit make the applying process for them easier than other countries?
No scientist from Europe that has high-ranked universities in the world cannot get the green cards in the next decade. The bill will heavily monopolize the green cards for only one country. This bill is not the solution; it makes the Indian problem “a global problem”.
This is unfairness for non-Indians, high-skilled immigrants.
Looking at the northern neighbor Canada, I think they are doing good job by having merit based permanent residency. It may be time for USA to adopt something similar and select candidates for green card based on merit, skills and salary(normalized).
Yeah Canada : Only Toronto area is best for searching jobs due to connected closely with Richest states & cities, NY & NYC , Boston, Buffalo , CT VT NH by roads for businesses, rest hell cold like north pole and nothing except moose. You enjoy your stay there.
I personally adore the Indian communities and I would hate to sound discriminatory but that monopoly is worrying
Indians represent 17% of the world population but they flood the H1b system with applicants from Indian IT outsourcing firms acquiring 85% of visa quoted every year pushing aside other applicants from all over the world PhDs, Masters etc
Fraudulent abuse of the H1bs don’t represent high skilled workforce they actually ruin it for other highly qualified Indians and every one else
It may be fair for some and it is definitely unfair for some people. There needs to be balance
I am proud to be an Indian. I like everything about India except quota system in its every form. But looks like people from all other countries like the quota system as this are benefiting them.When this is employment visa , should not the job/visa/GC be given to most deserving candidate? Do you take anyone in your own company less deserving candidate who are not fit for the job to maintain diversity? If you guys are so capable why are you worrying about Indian , Chinese and other origin people? The One who has done master from well know university or has good educational background and apart from this he/she has been living here for past 12-15 years and earning far higher than national average i.e paying more taxes than national average . Do you think he/she should be less deserve to get GC than a parson coming from different part of the world with less educational qualification and with less salary jobs ? Is this because he was born in India or China. This is what currently happening which causing middle class American family wage down. In the era of globalization, we can not be that protective rather we should all think to make ourself/our children more capable and enhance our skill rather than fighting here.
I wish they were really qualified!
Indians take Indians even if they are not qualified just because they are Indians!!
This is the way Indian Employers abuse the system!
They are making the USA their second land!
I think you already mentioned the problem too. The green card process should be merit based. If you have higher education and skills, you should get your green card sooner than someone with lower education. But, the HR1044 does not do this. It is not the solution!
Trust me….if indians were on the opposite side of the road…they too would oppose this bill. 95% of the green card queue would be taken by indians if this bill passed. Why should my wait time be extended because of indians or chinese. Where is the “fairness” here . Indians take almost all h1B’s quotas and now they plan to take the gc too. First come first serve is just nonsense.
Would you rather have your leg operated by a fairly new averagely qualified doctor than an experienced doctor with extraordinary qualifications just because you support diversity and not the qualification , experience and Merit. America is built on Merit and can only survive and thrive on Merit. And Merit should be first come first and not Discriminated based upon country of origin . The people who will benefit the most from the bill are the American workers because they get dinged in wage bid against modern times slaves who are anyways in the country on H1B waiting for their green cards – No fair ground. Very lucrative for employers ; can’t beat that ! HR1044 is in favor of everybody but workers – Americans or H1Bs
And how exactly this bill establish merit withing a cathegory? See… this is the problem…all applicants withing a category have similar qualifications. So let’s say in EB2 all applicants…Indians, Chinese and all the rest of the world have similar qualifications as they all have what is require to qualify for EB2….yet Indians are way too many and so if you free the cap they can take over all green card not leaving much opportunity for people of other countries with same qualifications.
So here is where people is misinformed….intentionally of course.
– the system as it is dose classify people based on qualifications and merits. For example…really high high qualify people can apply to EB1 where the waiting time for Indians is only 3yr …..not 20 like they say.
– with the system as it is, Indians get up to 25% of all employment based green cards each year. This is because they take over any left over for other diversity categories. So is not true they only get the 7%….the backlog that they have is simply because they are too much and they simply overflow the system.
So removing the cap is crazy and it will favor only Indians at the cost of other nationals and other profession.
By Merit I mean the category under which a beneficiary qualifies for a green card as the name suggests “Employment Based”. Meaning a job that urges a very specific skill set and qualification level for which a demand can not be locally met . And if that application of employment by that employer or the company does not require or discriminates a prospective candidate based upon their nation of origin , then neither should the country of employment do . Because what matters is the quality of the work being done and not the color, sex or origin of the person doing it .If a company does it , we call it discrimination but if we try to defend the current visa system by calling it diversity? Its a dated and a broken immigration law that demands the much needed change. This is no different than a school district or a college or a university that caps students being admitted based upon their race , color , ethnicity or country of origin rather than on their application or merit. This law will truly bring first come first equality for all and end the unfair discrimination by the virtue of so called “cap”.
Shrey, I love Indians as many of my mentors and professors were Indians. They work hard to get the job done. But put yourself in an non Indian shoe. If this bill passes, a non Indian queue is looking at 6-8 wait time. Why should I wait that many years. Now lets say because of some other country green card queue, Indians queue has been extended, would you still agree with this bill?…. And if this bill seems right, why are only Indians and Chinese in favor.
You talk about how the others wait times go up and ask how that’s fair. It’s fair because those people have so far been exploiting the per country cap loophole to cut lines in front of so many Indians and Chinese who have been waiting in line. The change that is being proposed finally makes it fair. Remember, there is only a fixed number of green cards is available. So in a fair system, it will take longer time than what it historically used to take for non Indians and Chinese. But that’s because history has been unfair and after this bill, things will gradually start becoming fairer.
Situation is the same as electoral college in US elections – there are currently big states (Like California and New York) and small by population. They are equalizing by predefined votes – 55 to CA, not really proportional to their population. So their should be some decision how many quotes should be provided to different countries so big by population countries (India, Pakistan, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Mexico,..) and small like New Caledonia will get fair part(percent) of total green cards number. Programming is not science and every country has good and bad programmers, it is engineering skill, requires technical validity but most hard working and experience (merit). That will be fair decision, not monopoly of recruiting firms in IT market.
Well said Sofia ! That is my observation too ! On top of everything you said, the law to start with appears discriminatory which caps the GC at 7% for about 3 Billion people from India and China ! This will make the system based on Merit and not on someone’s country of birth. If USCIS accepts the petition based on documentation provided, where is the doubt? Of course, i support vetting of cases to make sure the false representation and frauds are detected and only deserving folks gets the GC.
It should be first come first serve bases. This is USA not Canada NZ AUS, merit systems will be failure for sure.
Do you have your Masters from USA and may I know your Priority date?
Lol, Everyone not hold Masters from USA, also not American Citizens as well.
I am Bachelor Degree holder from India (called BCA). working in USA since 2007 , EB3 approved applied in Feb 2013 PD. I mentioned that
Please do not say wrong things!
The 7% country cap is per country. So, India initially gets 7% and China gets 7% for itself.
Moreover, at the end, India is getting 25% of the EB green cards while it has 17% of the population of the world.
And just giving the GCs to Indians making it merit based? What is your logic? You want to say that just Indians are good?
You know that the majority of the Indians in the line just have Bachelor degree from Indian universities. India has no University in top 150!
So please do not spread BS!
Can you please share some link which explains how India or China get 25% GC in current system?
This bill is killing dreams of whole world except India and China. Backlogs area not created by US but by Indians and Chinese who know there will be backlogs and still come here. So, India and China should not receive GC for 20 years to come and help solve the backlogs. Mistakes of Indians and Chinese should not punish the whole world. Use common sense!!
China is the main VICTIM of the bill as well. There are only 16k Chinese in line waiting for Green Card in EB2, whereas 200k Indian waiting in the same category. The priority date of Indian starts from 2009 and which of Chinese is 2016. If there is no country limits, 90% of the GC will be issued to Indian, 10% to other Country expect Chinese, and ZERO% to Chinese.
May be you don’t understand the pain of the merit students who did their masters in top colleges and dreaming about their future and waiting in line for GC, Everyone loves their country, but in search of a better future people will migrate to other countries.
If you come up with a question that why these merit students go back to their countries and contribute to their own countries growth then the question is are you ready to do the same??
Wait…you are talking about a master!!! Come on….because of this bill people that has a EB2 classification and holds a PhD (not a stupid master) will have to wait 10 years….so where is the merit base system everybody is talking about?
If you are not a supporter of this bill, could you help us to sign this petion please?
Yes Sure. Could you please share the link. We have to stop this bill to pass!!! Lets all of us raise our voice for #NoHR1044 #NoS386
The only thing the bill is doing is being fair which people don’t believe in. This bill is in line with the governments vision of merit based immigration.
No Merit based.. that’s not full fill market jobs opening for sure.
Rules should first applied first serve bases. Merit based will be failed for sure.
America is land of opportunities not for merit based, there are many jobs opening in market.
Also very important if Americans really & seriously work for those jobs they don’t want to hire other people.
Here on workplace what Americans do weekly :
Monday “Talking with co-workers about Weekends, what they did”
Tuesday ” Hold on, I have pending work of Mondayzz, due to he busy with work assigned on Monday , bla bla just talking…”
Wednesday ” Too much work load, talking on phone honey what about dinner today, I have lots of work to finish, ultimately never finish work”
Thursday “Too much work load, headache, Oh nice summer here, lets some lunch out and walk, lets watch some beautiful ladies & legs,, honey what about dinner, talking talking talking”
Friday ” lazzyy day, it’s Friday, talking with co-workers, hey do we have early release, shall I go at-least 1hr early? honey whats plan for weekend, which restaurant do you prefer today for dinner”
So, from those 5-days which day you worked??? That 5-Days work which should Americans have to work & Finish that H1B candidate finishing on next Monday or Tuesday maximum.
After getting some anger from Boss to american employee, oh man these H1B people are taking our jobs we have no respect by boss, haha Funny.. this happening to me everyday.
**Americans (I mean who holding USA citizenship here, all people not only white)
America will be engulfed indians and rest of the world will be punished. US should band india and china for decade to remove this backlogs. Diversity is the main principle for this nation. Quality of life and american wages will go low and it will be a mess. Indian keep coming US again and there will be always backlogs. India and china should be banned until their backlogs are solved.
This bill deserves to be passed as it is for people standing in line and not jumping walls. It is good for the country as these will future tax payers with the skills that are need of the future.
Indians are creating jobs here , look around your town. how many businesses owned by Indians and tax paid by those business. that’s help economy. If you work hard and take seriously your job, you safe anywhere you work. otherwise your company will looking for alternate options for sure. that not Indians fault, that’s your fault you not take your job seriously. I know at my workplace this situation everyday.
From the way you have written English, it is quite clear that you are one of those who got GC out of the luck, now enjoying a lethargic way of working in the US. I have met people like you and boy!, you act like you are in India.
For people like you, this bill will do harm as your bosses would realize they can actually hire smart and well educated people without worrying about visa sponsorship.
And please!, learn to write English at least when you speak for America. Your vocabulary is pathetic.
It is high time this bill gets passed if the US wants to preserve it’s global status in the technology world. There is universal acceptance to the fact that the majority of Indians and Chinese are hard-working, compare that to any other country – it has more to do with the competition they face and the struggle these people do as they grow up, in every sphere of their life, they have to fight for everything day to day, so they come out so much more passionate and creative – compare the simplest TV commercials for example, way more creative! But if the ability to slog 16-18 hours work daily is not enough, knowing both the first and third worlds gives a sense of motivation that can’t be imbibed otherwise. I am not by any means saying other countries are less deserving, but to deprive hard-working deserving individuals their hard-earned success is not something we can be proud of. The US economy itself grows better as 20-30% of a H1B salary goes to paying taxes which only the US citizens can benefit from.
From my wages, total 34% going to Federal and state including all what they mentioned as benefits like social, etc. but nothing benefits in return to H1B candidate in present and also future.
I would eliminate issuing green card to all those with H1B , the country is getting over populated and the quality of life , customer services is getting worse with immigrants from the 2 giant countries like China and India.
It is time to close doors for that part of the world and let the small European countries needs a boost for the US quality standards .
Europeans are the biggest assests where Indians are liabilities.
One Indian gets in bring 200 uncles and aunts and our health system is getting bankrupt. Schooling boards has to allocate more funds.
Nothing against India but they can stay there in their incredible India and do good for their country.
American kids are smart enough to lead the US.
Can not agree more with you!!! I don’t understand why people are supporting this, It will create a big mess. Why don’t they understand county based cap is for keeping the diversity alive. If this bill passes (I hope not in near future) for next 10 years No people from Rest of the World would get GC. Now, do you think merit people are born only in India??? Mostly abusing the H1B system, filling multiple petitions, using fake resume with 8+years of experiences to get job in high tech IT companies, money sucking consulting business etc. We all know people of which country recently plead guilty for visa fraud and fake universities. I could go more and more !!! See, I am not saying not to give visa or GC to Indian people, I agree there are thousands of them who really work hard and deserve it however,the backlog has not created by ROW but Indians. Think about this now the Rest of the World has to suffer for the mess that made by Indian. No problem will solve until unless they increase the visa limit.
#NoHR1044 #NoS386
I don’t agree with Indian Americans point of view. Remember you are Indian by heritage too. I do agree with your point “notasupporte”. because rest of the world can’t wait ten years just because India and China two of all the 200 countries in the world decided to have a lot of population.
Well its not about the population. It is about who was first in line. There are people from both these countries waiting in line for 10 years now and needed to wait another 8 years whereas someone born from outside these two countries can just walk in today and get their GC next year. Do you think that is fair for a person who has been paying his taxes for 10 years and contributing to the economy? Do you think stopping these two countries is going to bring down the number of people who get GC? The count is still going to be the same of the number of people coming in. Also do u know there is a diversity lottery of 50k GCs issued every year which includes rest of the world except for a select 5-6 countries, under which you don’t need to have any qualification than a random lottery selection. Isn’t that again unfair to the people waiting in line.
Agreed Sushant, and good point. It’s not fair to those Indians who have been waiting in line for 10 years and paying taxes and contributing to American economy, whereas people from other countries walk in and get GCs. This is racial discrimination!
Looks like this bill will discriminate against all others countries in favour of Indians and Chinese and that prima facie is an issue. Most H1 B holders have come to a sense of entitlement in the US which they don’t hold in the country of origin. While such a law may be beneficial for those who wait in short term, there are long term repercussions which you’re not looking at. Higher qualifications too isn’t what makes Indians or Chinese superior. It’s the monopoly that Indian companies like Infosys and TCS have which have crowded the immigration system.
@IndianAmerican, remember either your parents/aunts/uncles came here first in this country and have struggled a lot and that’s why now you just get to enjoy the benefits. Have they not been here, then you would probably be in the same line (to get a GC) as others. So I hope you appreciate other countries. India and China contribute a lot to American society (in many ways – be it culturally, economically or software).
no chance, desis will keep dreaming for another 30 years and still situation will be same, everybody else wants this bill to die so there is no chance