Washington: A bunch of Indian-American frontline healthcare workers languishing within the Green Card backlog held a demonstration in entrance of the US Capitol urging lawmakers and the Biden administration to finish the per capita country-specific quota.
A Green Card, identified formally as a Permanent Resident Card, is a doc issued to immigrants to the US as proof that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing completely within the nation.
Indian IT professionals, most of whom are extremely expert and are available to the US primarily on the H-1B work visas, are the worst victims of the present immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per nation quota on allotment of the coveted Green Card or everlasting authorized residency.
“We are frontline COVID warriors, and we are here to tell how we have been short changed into a life of perpetual indentured servitude. Each of us has a story. We are here from all over the country asking for justice. Justice that has precluded us for decades now,” mentioned Dr Raj Karnatak, an infectious illness and important care doctor and Dr Pranav Singh, a pulmonary and important care doctor.
“Most of us are from India. We trained in the US and took oath as physicians to serve the sick and needy. Most of us are serving the rural and underserved areas. We are in a Green Card backlog due to archaic country caps that allow no country to get more than seven percent of employment-based green cards,” mentioned the 2 Indian American docs’ organisers of the peaceable protest mentioned in a joint assertion.
According to them, because of a long time of backlog, many high-skilled immigrants should not in a position to change jobs because of worry of shedding the spot within the Green Card line and are indentured to at least one employer.
“Can only work in the specialty occupation the visa is allotted for decades. Many healthcare workers could not serve in COVID-19 hot spots as the visas are tied to the job and employer,” they mentioned.
The small group of protestors mentioned that President Joe Biden can direct United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to finish the Green Card backlog for the frontline healthcare workers by utilising the unused inexperienced playing cards prior to now years.
There was an HR 1044 equity invoice that was handed within the House of Representatives by 365 votes in 2019 and its senate equal S386 handed the Senate in 2020.
Now it’s again to House as a modified model. Representative Zoe Lofgren, preliminary co-sponsor of the invoice HR 1044 has not proven any curiosity in bringing the invoice to vote as a bipartisan resolution to finish the struggling of expert professionals together with frontline healthcare workers, they alleged.
Dr Karnatak and Dr Singh mentioned that India is a land of greater than a billion individuals, however the variety of inexperienced playing cards India will get is identical as a rustic as small as Iceland. Indian high-skilled workers are introduced into the US on an H-1B visa. There isn’t any nation cap on the H-1B visa and because of its sheer inhabitants, Indians make 50 % of the H-1B workforce.
The H-1B visa, essentially the most wanted amongst Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that enables US firms to make use of international workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical experience. The know-how firms rely upon it to rent tens of hundreds of staff every year from international locations like India and China.
The discrepancy within the variety of H-1B employed from India and a small variety of inexperienced playing cards allotted to India creates an inhumane Green Card backlog.
Green Card backlog is adversely affecting the skilled and private lives of high-skilled immigrants from India together with the frontline healthcare workers, they mentioned.
“Frontline healthcare workers need immediate relief, they are suffering for a very long time. As frontline healthcare workers who are risking their lives in this pandemic, the least we deserve is a certainty. A certainty that if we die or get disabled, our children and spouses won’t be kicked out of the country,” mentioned the joint assertion on behalf of the protestors.
Last month, President Biden revoked a coverage issued by his predecessor through the pandemic that blocked many Green Card candidates from coming into the US.
Reopening the nation to individuals looking for inexperienced playing cards, or authorized everlasting residence, Biden in his proclamation mentioned that the coverage of former president Donald Trump doesn’t advance the pursuits of the nation.
“To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here,” he mentioned.
The US is at the moment going through a backlog of practically 473,000 certified family-based Green Card requests.
As a results of Trump’s ban on issuing inexperienced playing cards, as many as 120,000 family-based choice visas had been misplaced. But this got here as a giant boon for issuing employment-based inexperienced playing cards, primarily these on H-1B visas.
