Nearly 7.19 lakh Indians are awaiting their employment-based green cards as of September 2021, noted a study published by the Cato Institute. Shockingly, the wait time is estimated to be 90 years (more than the average lifespan of a person!) if no measures are taken to address bureaucratic delays in green card issuance. 

These figures underline the necessity of reforms in the US immigration system, which unfortunately is keeping skilled immigrants away from the jobs needing them. Meanwhile, data also reveals that 2,30,000+ green cards under family and employment categories were unused in the period between 1992 and 2022. So, in an attempt to clear the long-pending green card backlog, the US President’s Advisory Commission has given its green signal to the proposal that unused green cards be recaptured. This move is expected to provide relief to over 1.4 million immigrants, who have been waiting for their green cards for years.

Picture Credit: Fileright.com

Why is this Green Card Recapture Recommended?

The US has a limit on annual green card issuance to immigrants. (A Green Card or Permanent Resident Card is an official document granting its bearer the permission to reside and work in the US permanently). This limit is set at 1,40,000 for employment-based green cards and 2,26,000 for family-sponsored green cards. Further, there is a 7% country-based quota system for these categories, which doesn’t take into account either the country’s population or the demand for green cards from them. So, the US doesn’t process more than 25,620 family and employment-based green cards annually to immigrants of a particular country despite receiving a high volume of applications, which only keeps increasing year after year. This led to accumulation of green card petitions, especially from countries like India and China.

Indian-American entrepreneur, Ajay Bhutoria, also a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, recommended the recapture of the green cards that have remained unissued due to administrative complexities and delays. Reallocating these lost opportunities to those waiting in hope can help unburden the government by facilitating the clearance of some backlogged applications every year in addition to processing the annual limit of green cards for these categories. 

What does Recapture of Unused Green Cards Mean to Indian Immigrants Affected by Green Card Backlog?

As is well-known, a vast number of Indians fly to USA every year in pursuit of their American Dream. Most of them are usually H1B visa holders with ambitions to settle permanently in the US. Their applications for an employment-based green card are likely to get stuck in the mire of backlogs created by the per-country quota system. Situations turned so hopeless in the past for certain immigrants including Dr. Pranav Singh, who took a flight back to India being fed up with the long green card wait period.

Data suggests that the US issues around 7000 to 9000 employment-based green cards to Indians annually. If the dependents of primary applicants are excluded, then approximately 2000 H1B visa holders from India get green cards while the number of H1B work visas issued every year is close to 85,000. Even if we assume that only one fourth of them apply for a green card in a particular year, much less than one fourth of the total applicants would receive it and the rest would slip into the mounting backlog. 

The excruciatingly long wait time for Indians to get green cards is a result of this widening gap between the number of applications received and the country-based cap on green card issuance. Under these circumstances, recapture of green cards unused over the years can prove to be beneficial to thousands of Indian immigrants waiting to get their hands on the most-coveted green cards.

Although the green card recapture recommendation has been approved at the White House, it doesn’t take effect until it gets a Congressional nod. So, it remains to be seen how long it takes for this bill to translate into action. Hope the recommendation for recapture of unused green cards won’t meet the fate of the RELIEF Act that sought to keep immigrant families together and the failure of the EAGLE Act that sought to phase out the per-country limit on the issuance of employment-based green cards to Indians.

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Non-immigrant visa holders felt the ordeal of being stuck in the green card backlog intensely during the pandemic, as their entry to the US was heavily restricted by President Biden’s proclamations curbing the import of COVID-19 cases from the affected countries. Consequently, thousands of H1B, H4, L1 and other non-immigrant visa holders were stranded in India, and many of them were separated from their families in the United States. They bore the brunt of long wait times for green cards. If they had got the magic wand (Green Card0, they would have spread a magic mat in the air and travelled to the US flying past all the restrictions.

In a recent development of attempts at phasing out per-country limits on issuance of employment-based green cards, two Senators – Kevin Cramer and John Hickenlooper – introduced a new version of the EAGLE Act 2021. Cleared by the US House Judiciary Committee in April this year, the legislation is now titled EAGLE Act 2022.

Picture Credit: YesPunjab.com

Amid a row over the pandemic-induced travel ban on India in 2021, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Republican John Curtis had brought a bipartisan legislation onto the table. The Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act (HR 3648 EAGLE Act 2021) was aimed at removing the obstacles that are responsible for the mounting backlog of green card applications. Needless to say the obstacles include the fixed 7% country-wise limit on the allocation of employment-based green cards. The HR 3648 EAGLE Act 2021 also addressed the need to raise the per-country cap on issuance of family-based green cards to 15%.

Not the country of origin but skills should be the basis of hiring foreign workers and issuing green cards to them – is the basic premise of the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act. Over the years, the US Congress saw several bills seeking phasing out of the per-country cap in order to ensure fair allocation of employment-based green cards. But, none of the bills made a cut. The last bill was the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act (HR 1044, S386) that gained momentum when Donald Trump’s days were numbered at the White House.

The final version of the combined HR 1044, S386 served as the foundation of the newly introduced bill, HR 3648 EAGLE Act 2021. President Biden’s US Citizenship Act of 2021, which promised a lot to those stuck in the green card logjam, has not yet clicked with the Senate since it was introduced within a few days of Biden’s swearing in to the presidential office. Hence, John Curtis and Zoe Lofgren’s ‘Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act’ was another big attempt at removing per-country caps on green card allocation.

The HR 3648 EAGLE Act 2021 was vocal about certain advantages to the US economy that fair allocation of employment-based green cards would have ensured. “The basic framework for allocating immigrant visas dates back to the middle of the 20th century and was last seriously updated in 1990,” Congresswoman Lofgren said. “The effect of the per-country caps is that countries with small populations are allocated the same number of immigrant visas as that to skilled labor from a relatively large-population country,” she further said.

“The bipartisan act, if signed into a law, will lead America towards a system that de-emphasizes birthplace and better serves the nation and its economy,” Zoe Lofgren opined while explaining the benefits of the EAGLE Act 2021.

The bill requires the Department of Labor (DOL) to set up a ‘Searchable Internet Website’ where all H1B jobs will be posted for unrestricted public viewing. The website should come up within 180 days from the signing of the bill into a law. The jobs posted on the website will remain live for 30 days from the day of posting and must have such details as education, experience and training required; salary details; employment location and benefits; and application process. Each H1B job post should have a title, a description and occupational classification.

The bill will enable American employers to focus on roping in the best talent from overseas and building great products that will create employment in the country and strengthen the local economy, according to Republican John Curtis.

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After one year of having assumed presidential responsibilities, Joe Biden is all set to put the Trump-era public charge rule on a reverse gear. Introduced in the Trump regime of immigration-related uncertainties, the hardline public charge rule curbed immigrants’ claim to permanent residency on grounds of limited self-sufficiency. Since the 1800s, there has been a law that foreign nationals are inadmissible to the country and immigrants are ineligible for green cards if they lack self-sufficiency, or if they are likely to become a ‘public charge’ (economic burden on the country). The Trump administration defined ‘self-sufficiency’ as a fundamental criterion for individuals seeking entry to the US, noncitizens seeking legal permanent residency, and non-immigrant visa holders seeking extension of stay in the US.

On February 17, President Biden proposed new regulations to soften the ‘public charge’ definition and limit public charge determinations, as the Department of Homeland Security’s Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made it clear that the 2019 public charge rule is not consistent with the United States’ constitutional values. He said, “Under this proposed rule, we will return to the historical understanding of the term ‘public charge’ and individuals will not be penalized for choosing to access the health benefits and other supplemental government services available to them.”

The Trump administration defended the public charge rule by arguing that it would help non-immigrants and certain immigrant groups become self-sufficient in the best interests of the US economy. The then Secretary of DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen said, “Those planning to immigrate to the United States must establish their ability to meet their housing and healthcare needs and other requirements, relying on their own capabilities and resources as long as they will be staying here.” However, humanitarians, civil rights activists and Democrats condemned the 2019 public charge rule as a deliberate act of discrimination against low-income immigrants.

The Trump-era public charge rule, if enforced, would have affected mostly the green card seekers who entered the US through family-based immigration. Furthermore, H4 visa holders would have been required to prove their self-sufficiency despite having no work authorization. The breakup of many immigrant families would have been the worst repercussion of the public charge rule.

Joe Biden’s proposal, which will soon be open to public comments, seeks to provide ‘fair and humane treatment’ to noncitizens by redefining “likely at any time to become a public charge” as “likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” Biden’s version of the public charge rule will not consider those receiving noncash benefits, among the federal aid programs, as a ‘public charge’. The federal government’s noncash benefits include the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, housing and transportation vouchers.

The new public charge rule will also not include Social Security, pandemic assistance, government pension, disaster aid received under the Stafford Act, and benefits in the form of tax credit or deduction. Some categories of non-citizens, including refugees, asylees, special immigration juveniles, temporary protected status (TPS) applicants, and petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act will be exempt even from the new public charge rule.

However, the Department of Homeland Security will continue to consider certain federal benefits as public charge inadmissibility determinations. These benefits are Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Cash assistance for income maintenance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), program, and long-term institutionalization at government expense.

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If the United States’ Budget Reconciliation Bill becomes a law, applying for an H1B visa will be a costly affair. It will help silence the critics of H1B visa holders and shatter the myth that this nonimmigrant visa pools cheap labor from foreign markets into America. Transiting into H1B status from an F1 visa or getting an H1B visa petition directly approved is a crucial passage into the US – the cradle of American Dream – for many skilled Indians in STEM, according to the US immigration system. The House Reconciliation Bill, if approved, will cost employers more than before for the filing of H1B petitions.

The latest version of the bill has proposed a supplemental fee of $500 on top of the current fees for an H1B petition. This is just one of the proposed additional fees for various immigration related petitions. The Budget Reconciliation Bill seeks to increase the existing fee for employment-based permanent residency by an additional $800 and the existing fee for a family-based Green Card (Form I-130) by $100.

Spouses of certain non-immigrants seeking employment authorization, and foreign students seeking OPT will have to pay an additional fee of $500 as proposed in the bill. A supplemental fee of the same amount will be levied on an application for adjustment of status. An application to change or extend nonimmigrant status (Form I-539) will cost more $500. The House Reconciliation Bill in its current form requires you to pay more $500 for applying to renew an expired or about-to-expire Green Card.

The bill requires educational institutes to pay a supplemental fee of $250 for each F1 and M1 visa. The same supplementary amount is proposed for a J-1 exchange visa.

Given the analysis of government and attorney fees by the National Foundation of American Policy, filing an H1B visa petition for the first three years or an extension for an additional three years will cost a company not less than $31,800 including the proposed fee increase. Below is a breakup of the cost to be incurred upon approval of the Budget Reconciliation bill:

• Application fee: $460
• Proposed additional fee: $500
• Attorney fees: $1500 to $4000
• Added attorney fees for a Request for Evidence: $2000 to $4500
• Scholarship and training fee: $1500 ($750 for a company with 25 or fewer employees
• Anti-fraud fee: $500 (on initial petition)
• Premium Processing (optional): $2500
• “50/50” fee (for a company with workforce over 50% H1B/L1): $4000 (on initial petition)
• Visa application (based on reciprocity): $190 ($0 – $800)

(The data source: National Foundation of American Policy)

Though the proposed fee increases will largely impact small businesses, it discards the prevailing myth that US employers import foreign talent on H1B as cheap labor. On the contrary, conglomerates are willing to pay additional fees for skilled foreign workers, according to immigration attorneys. H1B workers in STEM professions earn more than their American counterparts having the same profile, according to economists from the Public Policy Institute of California.

President Biden’s budget reconciliation bill calls for a $100 billion investment to introduce reform measures in the US immigration system and clear Green Card backlogs. If the proposed additional fee increases are approved, it will help expedite the LPR process for hundreds of thousands of Indians stuck in the Green card limbo. This would be the most significant immigration reform to be credited to the Biden administration. Unlike Dr. Pranav Singh, no H1B workers will have to give up on the American Dream due to sheer frustration over the inordinate delay in the green card processing.

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Since the pandemic began, time has been a roller-coaster ride for many non-immigrant US visa holders. They are back to where they were early in 2020. In the wake of the pandemic, India suspended all international flights, inbound and outbound, leaving thousands of non-immigrant visa holders stranded and separated from their families in the US until the launch of Vande Bharat Mission expanding to air bubble travel. A little more than a year later, they have met with the same fate in the aftermath of the US government’s entry restriction for certain travelers from India, effective this May 4.

Picture Credit: Worldnewsera.com

Ashu Mahajan, a 44-year-old H1B professional from New Jersey, is left helpless in India and pleading with the US government for return to his family because of the selective move restricting entry to certain travelers from India – which his wife calls ‘an irony’. Anu Sharma, an H4 visa holder from California, has also got stuck in India for an indefinite period of the US travel restriction. A virus can transmit through anyone, a US citizen or a non-US citizen; it does not differentiate. We feel we are once again penalized because we are in the long queue for green cards,” she told the American Bazaar.

Ashu Mahajan, who has been working as an architect on H1B in the US since 2008, had gone to India to look after his 75-year-old, ailing father in mid-April. His short trip was extended as his father contracted the virus and succumbed to it after a few days of hospitalization and intubation in New Delhi. He cannot travel back also because the US consulates have cancelled in-person appointments in India. He can’t re-enter the US unless he attends an in-person appointment for visa stamping. With his dad being no more, Ashu is all alone in India and longs to be his with wife and kids in Scotch Plains.

Another H1B visa holder whose wife is expecting next month in California is stuck in India due to the travel impasse between the two countries. Out of the sheer concern about his pregnant wife being alone, he is desperately looking for a way out of the restriction. Similar is the fate of many others who had traveled to India for visa stamping and family emergency got stuck there as the US government’s entry restriction disrupted their return travel plans amid the soaring numbers of positive cases in India.

Inundated by calls of anxiety from those stuck in India and their separated families in the US, immigration attorneys opine that the selective travel restriction does not serve the purpose. The entry restriction should not be based on one’s citizenship, LPR status, or visa type. It should be either equal to all arriving from India or revoked immediately, according to attorneys dealing in immigration and visa services.

President Biden’s proclamation restricting travel from India, beginning May 4, mostly affects H1B and H4 visa holders whose spouse is neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. They are not subject to the proclamation if they are parents of a US-born kid. However, there is a way out for some of those who are not exempt from the restriction on entry into the United States.

Any non-immigrant visa holder/foreign national/non-US resident whose entry to the USA is in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security, may qualify for a National Interest Exception (NIE). Nonimmigrant visa holders whose travel to the US is critical to the purposes including but not limited to national security, civic infrastructure, public healthcare and humanitarianism are needed to demonstrate that they qualify for a National Interest Exception. They can contact the nearest US Embassy or Consulate in India prior to traveling or returning to the US. A National Interest Exception, if granted, is valid for a single entry within 30 days from the date of approval.

• U.S. Embassy New Delhi:   NewDelhiNIE@state.gov
• U.S. Consulate General Chennai: ChennaiNIE@state.gov
• U.S. Consulate General Hyderabad: HyderabadNIE@state.gov
• U.S. Consulate General Kolkata: KolkataNIE@state.gov
• U.S. Consulate General Mumbai: MumbaiNIE@state.gov

You must provide the following information in your email seeking a National Interest Exception:

• Last name
• First name
• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Country of citizenship
• Passport number
• Visa number and category
• Travel dates
• Travel purpose
• National interest category

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The initial registration for H1B visa lottery, the most sought-after passage for Indian IT professionals to enter the United States – the land of American Dreams – is supposed to begin on March 9, 2021 for the fiscal 2022. However, H1B visa is caught in a new storm in the new political regime. Immigration Voice, a nonprofit group voicing the concerns of high-skilled Indian immigrants who have been stuck in green card backlogs for years, is seeking a temporary halt to the issuing of fresh H1B visas to Indians (who are not in the USA).

The influential immigration advocacy group has released a statement for the Biden administration, requesting that the issuing of new H1B work visas should be paused for Indian nationals as long as the discriminatory per-country cap on employment-based green cards remains in effect for high-skilled Indian immigrants. It has sent apprehensions to those waiting to grab the most popular US work visa in 2022.

Immigration Voice has urged President Joe Biden to exercise the administrative authority under INA Section 2129(f) to keep Indians, who are not physically present in the US, out of the ambit of fresh H1B visas in the fiscal 2022. The Indian American lobby group has also requested the Biden administration that “immigrants from India should no longer be treated as indentured servants in the United States.”

Nearly 70% of 85,000 new H1B visas that the US allots every year are issued to Indian workers, whereas Indian immigrants receive only 8400 of the 120,000 green cards in the employment category per year. This discriminatory practice has led to the mounting of over one million petitions for employment-based green cards, thereby increasing the wait time to over 195 years for Indian immigrants in the USA. If the current system is not reformed, the wait time will become 436 years by the fiscal 2030, the California-based Immigration Voice said.

Aman Kapoor, President of Immigration Voice, uninhibitedly described the current discriminatory employment-based green card allotment system as an ‘Indian Exclusion Act’.

He went on to say, “It means that if Vice-President Kamala Harris’ mother had come to the United States today, under such a system, she would never have gotten a Green Card in her lifetime. The course of Kamala Harris’ life would have been entirely different if she had been preoccupied with her mother’s possible deportation, as opposed to living her life as an American.”

Also Check: All you need to know if you are traveling to or from India in coming days

On the contrary, President Biden’s immigration reform bill, which was sent to Congress on his first day in office, appears to welcome more foreign workers into the United States. At the same time, the proposal for immigration overhauls appears to lay a faster path to US citizenship for immigration communities, including undocumented immigrants.

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President Joe Biden set the ball rolling to keep his electoral promises regarding immigration overhauls hours after he took office on January 20. Reportedly, the 46^th US President sent a new reform bill to Congress, directing major overhauls to the US immigration system and aiming to remove the roadblocks that the Trump administration laid on the path to citizenship and legal permanent residency.

Known as the US Citizenship Act of 2021, Biden’s immigration reform bill seeks to bridge the gap between the US government and different immigrant groups. ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ seems to appear the core message of the bill, and it has sent cheers to undocumented immigrants, green card applicants, H1B visa professionals, H4 EAD beneficiaries, their ‘aging-out’ kids, and foreign students of STEM in the US.

“President Biden’s US Citizenship Act of 2021 modernizes our immigration system. It provides hard-working people who have enriched our communities and lived here for decades an opportunity to earn citizenship. The President’s priority reflected in the bill is to responsible manage the border, keep families together, grow our economy, address the root cause of migration from Central America and ensure that America can remain a refuge for those fleeing prosecution,” Jen Psaki, Press Secretary of the White House, said during a media briefing.

Indian American policymakers are of the opinion that Joe Biden’s immigration reform bill will stimulate the US economy by clearing the backlogs, such as per-country visa caps, which have stretched the wait period into several decades for employment-based green cards. This move is a boon to hundreds of thousands of Indian IT and non-IT professionals in the US. It also removes hurdles for foreign workers living on the lower-wage rungs of the economy to seek legal permanent residency in the employment-based category.

In order to keep immigrant families together in the US, the bill proposes allocation of unused green cards from previous years to clear the backlog in the family-based immigration system and seeks to raise the per-country visa caps so that the current wait time can be significantly cut short for green card holders’ dependents including spouses and children. Nearly 220,000 unused green cards could be utilized this way, according to a most recent report by the CATO Institute.

President Joe Biden’s immigration reform bill is a major relief to the H4 visa holders who were on the verge of losing their work permit in the Trump regime, and H1B visa holders’ children ‘aging out of the system’. A majority of the H4 visa holders are qualified Indian women and beneficiaries of the Obama-era work authorization.

The most amazing aspect of the Biden-Harris US Citizenship Act of 2021 is that the bill appears to recognize America as a nation of immigrants by seeking to replace the word ‘alien’ with ‘noncitizen’ in the US immigration laws. The key strengths of the bill include the ‘No Ban Act’ that outlaws any practice of religion-based discrimination in the country.

The Biden proposal cuts the green card process short to 8 years from the current period of 13 years on average for qualifying immigrants – those who clear background checks and pay taxes regularly. Notably, the bill allows them to apply for legal permanent residency after 5 years if they meet most of the principal requirements. They can apply for US citizenship 3 years later.

Other than augmenting the diversity visa program with a proposed increase from 55,000 to 80,000 visas a year, the new bill touches upon the wellbeing of undocumented immigrants in the USA. A pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents, including DACA recipients, is one of the key highlights of the US Citizenship Act 2021. As a call to action of his Presidential Memorandum, Joe Biden directed the Department of Homeland Security to ensure protection for DACA recipients, young immigrants who arrived as undocumented children in the US. There are 46,000 entrepreneurs among over 1.2 million DACA recipients in the US, according to the 2019 study by an immigration research and advocacy organization.

There are provisions for foreign students with advanced STEM degrees in the bill. The US Citizenship Act of 2021 touches upon certain reforms which are needed to make it easy for meritorious STEM students of foreign origin to stay in the US on completion of their studies.

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As per the memorandum that US President Donald Trump signed in May 2019 to enforce a 23-year-old long-standing law as an overhaul to the existing immigration system, the US-based sponsors of immigrants will receive a bill to reimburse the government for the federal public benefits rendered to or availed by their sponsored relatives of foreign-origin. This week, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) made a new move to hold sponsors responsible for providing financial support to foreign immigrants sponsored by them.

Even if a foreign national could manage to enter the United States at the cost of his social media privacy, he will become a financial liability to his sponsor.

The new move named “Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE)” is said to facilitate availability of information about sponsors to the federal agencies that are responsible for determining an alien’s eligibility for public benefits and rendering federal assistance to the eligible. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) is an effort towards ensuring compliance with the laws related to the eligibility of sponsored foreign immigrants and the disbursement of federal benefits to them. The USCIS’ SAVE policy will also enable the agencies to establish the financial accountability of sponsors towards their sponsored aliens.

The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) is an outcome of Trump’s May 2019 memorandum that directs federal agencies to reshuffle legal immigration in the US by deterring US citizens and legal permanent residents from sponsoring their foreign relatives or extended family members residing in their native countries. Part of a greater force pushing the nation for an absolute merit-based immigration system, the move is being looked down upon as a crackdown on legal immigration in the United States by a few.

The provision that former President Bill Clinton signed into a law in 1996 has not been consistently applied due to lack of inadequate enforcement. The enforced legal liabilities and financial responsibilities that sponsorship comes with will apply to all current sponsors and sponsored aliens, according to Donald Trump’s memo.

Found in the sections – 212 (a)(4) and 213 – of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the law requires sponsors to sign an affidavit of support, Form I-864, a legally enforceable document to be responsible for sponsored individuals’ financial needs in the US. Form I-864 is a sponsor’s guarantee to the federal immigration officials that the immigrant sponsored by him will not depend on certain means-tested public welfare programs until the latter becomes a US citizen or is credited with 40 quarters (10 years) of work in the US.

The law, which is claimed to be not enforced consistently in the post-Clinton regime, does require a sponsor’s financial capacity to be considered as a key to check whether the sponsor can bear financial responsibility for the immigrant sponsored.

President Trump’s memorandum, signed on May 23 this year, is a mandate to create new procedures or update the existing ones by the end of 2019, so that federal agencies can enforce the law on US citizens or green card holders’ sponsorship liabilities and collect reimbursement from them for their sponsored immigrants’ use of the government’s public welfare programs including Medicaid.

The federal agencies working in such domains as health, homeland security, human services, nutrition and agriculture are directed to develop their own framework for “collection procedures”, so as to ensure strict enforcement of the sponsorship law, which has merely been there since 1996.

58% of immigrant households avail at least one federal welfare program, and about 50% of immigrant households have at least one member on Medicaid, according to a recent report released by the White House.

Critics are of the opinion that such moves are the bane of low-income immigrants, who do initially need the federal aid to get started in the US. In order to counter critics, President Trump said, “To protect benefits for American citizens, immigrants must be financially self-sufficient.”

In October 2018, the White House proposed new guidelines seeking to render immigrants, who are likely to become a “public charge” due to lack of self-sufficiency, ineligible for legal permanent residency in the United States. That foreign nationals who lack self-sufficiency are simply inadmissible to the US, has been a poorly defined law since the 1800s, according to the Trump administration.

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In a drastic move to facilitate legitimate travel to the US for immigrants and international visitors in a more secure way, the Trump administration has proposed to expand the collection of biometric information. In the proposal, the Department of Homeland Security seeks to revise the standard definition of “biometrics” in connection with the immigration application process. The proposal under consideration may require immigration applicants to submit iris scans, voice recordings and DNA samples in addition to fingerprints.

Picture Credit: Immigrationreform.com

US citizens sponsoring immigration of relatives from their country of origin to the United States may have to comply with the government’s demand for intensive data collection as per the DHS proposal. The US government also seeks to accentuate the screening and vetting process with the reduced use of paper documents about potential immigrants’ familial relationships with their sponsors in the US.

Currently, those applying for work permits, legal permanent residency, US citizenship, or immigration benefits need to submit their fingerprints, photographs and signatures as per the USCIS policy for background checks. The new proposal seeks to expand the collection of biometric information about those over the age of 14 beyond fingerprints, photographs and signatures. The use of more personal information such as DNA, voice prints and iris scans beyond usual background checks is also proposed in the new policy.

The Department of Homeland Security’s collection of biometric details will be not only expanded but also modernized using futuristic technology towards ensuring consistent identity verification and identity theft prevention. The proposed policy is being described as invasive in nature as it is likely to repeal the current age limit on the collection of biometrics and require minors (below 14 years) to submit their biometrics.

Authorizing the collection and use of DNA samples to verify familial/genetic relationships is proposed in the new policy under consideration. Voice prints and iris scans are faster means of identity verification as explained by the Department of Homeland Security. Sarah Pierce, a leading US policy analyst, called the proposal “stunningly unnecessary.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has also despised the proposal and said that the Trump administration is “once again trying to radically change the US immigration system – which will consequently affect family-based immigration to the US”. The proposed collection of genetic blueprints may hold US citizens and legal permanent residents from sponsoring relatives for a green card. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of people will be subjected to continued surveillance. The worst concern is that the biometrics may be stored and used on a continuous basis even after an individual receives US citizenship.

In order to tide over the financial crisis, USCIS will also levy a fee on submission of biometric information by individuals going through the immigration process.

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The electoral confrontation between Donald Trump and Joe Biden seems to benefit immigrants and non-immigrants, including Indians on various US visas. President Trump’s hardline stance against foreign nationals on US employment visas is the biggest opportunity for Joe Biden to leverage his competitive advantage in the campaigns. In his immigration agenda, on July 15, former Vice President Biden promised to end the country-wise cap on the number of employment-based green cards issued to Indians. It prompted Trump to woo back those who his Presidential Proclamations (10014 and 10052) have left angered, anguished, frustrated and estranged from families.

Picture Credit: Forbes.com

In certain exceptions, announced on July 17, to the US Presidential Proclamations that suspended the entry of immigrants and non-immigrants till the end of 2020, the State Department allowed L1, J1 and H1B visa workers to unify with their spouses and kids stranded in India. The exemption from the visa ban allows the spouses and kids of H1B, L1 and J1, who would have otherwise remained alienated till this year end, to travel back to the United States.

They can return to the US, the country that they have been calling home for years, once their visas get stamped. Reportedly, the US embassies and consulates worldwide are all set to resume normal visa services soon. The US visa services, except for life-and-death emergency cases, have been suspended since March 2020 due to the COVID19 pandemic. The suspension of visa services and international flights prolonged their stay in India. The situation went out of the frying pan into the fire when Trump’s recent executive order banned the entry of those awaiting visa stamping in their countries of birth.

The White House’s visa ban conspired with travel restrictions and flight suspension triggered by the COVID19-induced lockdown across India to tear hundreds of Indian families apart. Many H4 spouses who had visited India for visa stamping in February or March found themselves stranded first due to flight cancellations and separated then from the family in USA due to the entry restrictions.

One H4 visa holder who had traveled to India with her toddler tweeted out of frustration, “It has been five months since I came to India for visa stamping. I got stuck here due to consulate closure and travel ban. My spouse is in the US. The presidential proclamation has separated us for the rest of the year.”

Exceptions to Presidential Proclamations: 10014 and 10052

However, they are somewhat relieved; all thanks to the recent exceptions to the Presidential Proclamations – 10014 and 10052. The exceptions apply to dependent spouses and children of the principal non-immigrant holding valid employment visas. If the principal non-immigrant is eligible for a discretionary exemption from the US visa ban, his/her dependents including spouse and kids can seek exemption from the Proclamations. Certain H1B visa holders who are public healthcare professionals or medical researchers working directly or indirectly to alleviate the impact of the COVID19 health crisis can travel back to the US. The exceptions to the Presidential Proclamations also cover H4 children who are on the verge of ageing out by January 14, 2021. Visit the US State Department website for details of exceptions to Presidential Proclamations.

Luckily, the US visa ban exemptions for certain H1B, H2B, L1, J1 visa holders and their dependents coincided with the announcement of 180 Air India flights between India and USA, starting July 22 till August 31. This time Air India tickets are expected to be less expensive compared to the flights operated under the Vande Bharat Mission. The booking of Air India flights between USA and India will open at 8 pm IST on July 18.

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