The Biden administration will now be able to process all applications for Green Cards or permanent residency within six months bringing relief and cheers to thousands of Indian-Americans who have been waiting for decades for a Green Card.
The decision was taken by a US presidential advisory commission after it voted unanimously to back the move. The President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (PACAANHPI) is yet to be adopted but if it is done it will reunite several families.
The commission recommended US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) several steps to reduce pending green card backlog by reviewing their processes, systems, policies and establishing new internal cycle time goals by streamlining processes, removing redundant steps if any, automating any manual approvals, improving their internal dashboards and reporting system and enhancing policies, news agency PTI reported.
This will reduce the processing time for all forms related to family based green card application, DACA renewals and all other green card applications within six months.
It will also help in issuing adjudicate decisions within six months of application received by it.
It also recommended that the National Visa Center (NVC) State Department facility hire additional officers to bolster the capacity to process green card application interviews.
The target is to process interviews by 100% in three months from August 2022 and to expand Green Card application visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150%.
The committee says that if implemented Green Card visa interviews and visa processing timeline will be a maximum of 180 days or 6 months. It also asked the USCIS to review requests for work permits, travel documents and temporary status extensions or changes within three months and adjudicate decisions.
In 2021 out of 226,000 green cards available only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued leaving hundreds of thousands of green cards unused which led to separation in families.
Indian-American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria moved the proposal in front of the PACAANHPI which was then unanimously accepted.
Bhutoria said that employment-and-family-based immigration is deeply flawed and lack of reforms have led to family-based immigration levels being at their absolute minimum every year for the past two decades.
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