Hello All,
Here is some information from my point of view. It is based on my understanding of the immigration laws and as I am not a lawyer, I do not take any legal responsibility for this.
Personally I have greencard (went through the pain in 2000-2001) and so not affected by this but my cousins are affected and that caused me to look into this.
Some Facts (or reasonable assumptions)
One key assumption is all indians who came before 2000, got their greencard by 2001. I know this is agreesive assumption but just made to come to reasonable forecast. If you think this is too agreesive, just guess a number of indians who came before 2000 and did not get greencard before end of 2001 and add to following calculation. It will only make things worse.
Another key assumption counting of only H-1Bs for greencard (again in last two years there are other H-1Bs for US graduates, schedules A and L1s who all applying for employment based greencards). Again including them will only make things worse.
Immigration quota for employment per year: 140,000 for all countries, about 9800 for one country before using the unused quota. This includes dependents.
H1 B issuesd from 2000 to 2002: about 500,000 (quota was 195,000 peryear)
H1 B issued from 2003 to 2005: about 200,000 (quota was 65,000 per year)
Of this Indians represent at least 1/3 of the H1Bs issued (I recollect a stat on INS website which actually was about 40%) Therefore total Indians who got H1B between 2000 and 2005 are about 700,000/3 = 230,000
Of this about 75% apply for greencard and have 2.5 person per family on average. Then total greencard visa needed = 230,000*.75*2.5 = 430,000 approx.
Now between 2001 to 2005, roughly 25 to 30% of the greencards were issued to Indians (based on data in earlier post which in turn was based on some INS source) - With this assumption of 30%,
Between 2001 to 2005 total employment quota: 140,000 * 4 = 560,000
However not all of this was used as 50,000 was reserved for schedule A
So the max that would be used was = 500,000 approx.
Of this 500,000 at 30%, Indians would have used 150,000 visa
This leaves 430,000 - 150,000 = 280,000 indians waiting for greencard who came between 2000 and 2005.
Now total quota of employment greencard is 140,000 and at rate of 30% for India (after allowing of use of unused quota by other countries), it is roughly 40,000 per year.
So, just to clear backlog it would take about 7 years (280,000/40,000).
Personally I think this estimate is agreesive, as 20,000 additional H-1 per year for US graduates, Thousands of L-1 and schedule A applicants are not accounted in this who all use the same 140,000 employment greencards. My personal estimate is that it would be close to 10 year for a person with EB3 priority date in June 2005 to get greencard with current laws.
Again This is just my two cents and you can change the assupmtions figures above and repeat the calculation with your ideas per your need.
Things can change in a hurry if US desperately needs IT workers again (like in 2000 US adjusted the laws due to year 2000 demand), however in current situation with so much fear of outsourcing in tech sectors, I would not be optimistic about changes in laws that will increase the 140,000 quota. Ultimately it is supply/demand situation (disguised under a scheme of immigration laws) that make lobbyists (influencial one with money - not like you and me who just send an email or letter to senator), industry and politicians to act on it.
