MSN Article : Emigrants to US face long wait for green card

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Scientists, engineers and other skilled professionals seeking emigration to the US could face waits of a decade or more before receiving the coveted "green card" that allows them to remain permanently in the country.

This month the annual quota even to apply for employment-based green cards was exhausted for highly skilled professionals from China and India, and for less-skilled workers from all other countries, according to the State Department. The wait to apply for a green card has now grown to more than five years in many cases.

The exhaustion of the annual green-card quota is the latest headache facing US companies trying to recruit scarce talent from abroad.

Visa restrictions imposed after the September 11 attacks had already made it much more difficult for students and researchers to enter the US. And in 2003 Congress allowed the annual quota of temporary H-1B visas for skilled workers to drop from 195,000 to 65,000.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused."This is the first time we've seen this sort of retrogression in many years," said Angelo Paparelli, managing partner of California-based Paparelli & Partners and the current president of the Academy of Business Immigration Lawyers.

Mr Paparelli said the problem "could last for years" unless Congress increased the quota of employment-based green cards.

Compete America, a business coalition that includes large US technology companies such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard, warned members of Congress in a letter last week that the new restrictions "will make it nearly impossible for these highly educated and skilled workers to gain permanent residence in the US in the foreseeable future".

A study released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center shows that legal immigration to the US has fallen 24 per cent since hitting a peak in 2000.
 
Financial Times News- Immigrants left frustrated by green card delays

The MSN atricle is originally from Financial Times news. One more article which is talking about this issue in Financial Times (ft.com).
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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1123024e-3b5a-11da-b7bc-00000e2511c8.html

Original Post:

Immigrants left frustrated by green card delays
By Edward Alden
Published: October 13 2005 03:00 | Last updated: October 13 2005 03:00

Maher Tamimi has been waiting for six years to apply for the coveted "green card" that would allow him to become a permanent resident of the US. Or rather, his wife has been waiting - literally, for she has little else to do.


Mr Tamimi, an Iraqi-born Canadian, works in Dallas as an electrical engineer for SunGard, which handles software and processing for large financial services companies. Since 2002, he has been allowed in the US on the H1-B visa granted to skilled foreign professionals.

But his wife of five years, Mariam Mouti, has not been so lucky. A Moroccan citizen and a trained doctor, she has been unable to work despite passing all the US medical exams and certification requirements. Until her husband is able to apply for a green card, she must live in the US on a visa that doesn't permit her to work.

"It is really affecting our lives," says Mr Tamimi. "I feel useless, hopeless. I cannot help her. I see her pain every day."

Both were hoping this year that Mr Tamimi would finally receive certification from the US Labor Department that his job could not be filled by a qualified American. That would then allow him to apply for a green card and, once the application was submitted, his wife would also finally receive a work permit.

But last month the State Department announced that, due to an overload of green card applications, workers in Mr Tamimi's position would not be allowed to seek a green card.

At a minimum, he appears to be facing a wait of two more years before he can apply, and the delay could be much longer.

The problem of "visa retrogression" - where there are simply not enough employment-based green cards to meet demand - has reached proportions not seen since the late 1980s, says Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the American Council on International Personnel. As an Iraqi-Canadian, Mr Tamimi's situation is far from the worst. Both Chinese and Indians face far longer delays, even for workers most coveted by US companies, such as scientists and engineers.

The US immigration system, which generally favours family members over unattached skilled workers, has a rigid annual cap of 140,000 on the number of employment-based green cards issued each year to foreign workers and their family members. That cap is further subdivided, so that citizens of any one country cannot receive more than 7 per cent of the total available, a restriction that particularly impinges on large developing countries such as China and India.

The State Department announced last month that, even for the category of "outstanding researcher" or "persons of extraordinary ability" - the highest priority for employment-based green cards - the quota had been filled from China and India.

No new applications will be taken from Chinese unless they had applied for their Labor Department certification before January 1, 2000, or from Indians before August 1, 2002. Waits for less skilled professionals are longer still.

The delays can be devastating for those caught out. Spouses and working-age children are barred from working, and those on temporary work visas are unable to change jobs for fear of losing their status in the US. Gary Endelman, immigration counsel for BP America, says that one employee at the company who recently applied for a green card wants to get married but because of the new waiting times his wife would be unable to join him in the US for years. "It's separating families," he says.

Ironically, the new delays have been caused in part by the US government's success in finally clearing out a large backlog of unprocessed green card applications. Lengthy processing delays had for many years kept the annual green card quota from being exhausted, but quicker processing has instead simply shifted the backlog to those waiting to apply for green cards.

The problem is also particularly acute now because Congress raised the cap on H1-B visas to 195,000 in 1998 to respond to high-technology labour shortages, and many of those workers are now seeking permanent residence in the US. The cap reverted to 65,000 at the end of 2003. "There's no doubt that part of what's happened in the additional numbers in the 1990s have created a huge bubble," says Sandra Boyd of the National Association of Manufacturers, which lobbied heavily for more H1-B visas.

Two immigration reform bills currently before the Congress would attempt to address the pent-up demands. Legislation sponsored by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy would increase employment-based green cards to 290,000 annually, while a rival bill from Senators John Cornyn and Jon Kyl would raised the cap to 190,000. But it is not clear that either bill can command a majority in the fractious House and Senate.

Large US employers are hoping for a quicker fix. They are lobbying Congress to amend the rules so that the 140,000 annual cap on green cards applies only to skilled workers and not to their family members. They are also urging that unused quotas from past years be carried forward to help relieve the current backlog.
 
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