Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday introduced matching bills that would throw out per-country limits on employment-based green cards.
Current law caps the annual percentage of green card recipients from any one country at 7 percent.
That restriction hits Indian citizens hardest, because of the high numbers of Indians in the U.S. who are eligible for green cards. Indian citizens on the H-1B visa and other visas can wait years or even decades for a green card. Chinese citizens also face long delays.
The “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act” bills from the House and Senate would also adjust per-country limits for family-based green cards.
The House bill was introduced by Democrat Bay Area Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and 113 other representatives, both Democrat and Republican. The Senate bill was introduced by Democrat California Sen. Kamala Harris and 14 other senators from both parties.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said in a press release that the Senate bill’s supporters include Google, Walmart and the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents major Silicon Valley tech companies and also outsourcing firms that receive vast numbers of H-1B visas.
Lofgren said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for decades. “At the heart of this broken system are the outdated employment- and family-based immigration systems, which suffer under decades-long backlogs,” Lofgren said in a statement. “In combination with the per-country limits, these backlogs keep nuclear families apart for decades, while preventing U.S. employers from accessing and retaining the employees they need to stay competitive.”
John Miano, a lawyer for the Center for Immigration Studies, which pushes for reduced immigration to the U.S., said the proposed legislation, if passed, would bring about “the most massive change in the history in immigration policy” and create a “train wreck” in America’s immigration system.
“The effect of the bill is to replace America’s system of diversity immigration with an India-first system,” Miano said in an email Friday. “Because India has monopolized the H-1B system, it would take over the employment-based green card system as well. The long-term effect is that about 75 percent to 80 percent of employment-based green cards would go to India.”
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