Backlog on deciding US Green Cards for Indians runs into 195 years: Senator

In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are different categories of employment-based Green Cards

International News: An Indian applicant for a US Green Card may have to wait 195 years for a decision, a top Republican senator has said, urging his Senate colleagues to come out with a legislative resolution to end the backlog. A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has allwed to reside permanently. Senator Mike Lee said on Wednesday that the current Green Card policy did nothing for the child of an immigrant whose dead parent’s Green Card application was ultimately denied because his or her job was no longer available.

“Someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait 195 years to receive an EB-3 green card. Even if we give their children this limbo status, none of them will have a prayer of becoming a US citizen,” Lee said on the Senator floor. In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are different categories of employment-based Green Cards.

Lee, the senator from Utah, was speaking on the legislation moved by Senator Dick Durbin that seeks to protect immigrant workers and their children who are stuck in the green card backlog. “Green cards are critical in the lives of so many who are here on temporary work visas. The backlog puts families at risk of losing their immigration status as they wait year after weary year to finally make it through this green card backlog,” Durbin said.

Backlog on deciding US Green Cards for Indians runs into 195 years: Senator

In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are different categories of employment-based Green Cards

An Indian applicant for a US Green Card may have to wait 195 years for a decision, a top Republican senator has said, urging his Senate colleagues to come out with a legislative resolution to end the backlog.

A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has allwed to reside permanently. Senator Mike Lee said on Wednesday that the current Green Card policy did nothing for the child of an immigrant whose dead parent’s Green Card application was ultimately denied because his or her job was no longer available.

“Someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait 195 years to receive an EB-3 green card. Even if we give their children this limbo status, none of them will have a prayer of becoming a US citizen,” Lee said on the Senator floor. In fiscal year 2019, Indian nationals received 9,008 category 1 (EB1), 2,908 category 2 (EB2), and 5,083 category 3 (EB3) Green Cards. EB1-3 are different categories of employment-based Green Cards…Read More

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Covid-19: Trump plans to suspend immigration to protect American jobs

The US President says the decision has been taken ‘in light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our great American Citizens’

Days after the US government allowed applicants for H-1B visas to continue in the country, President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a temporary suspension of immigration into the country. “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!,” the US President wrote in a Twitter post.

Details of Trump’s executive order were not immediately known. He also did not indicate when he will sign such an order. While Trump talked about suspending immigration visa, the H-1B visa, which is more popular among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa. But his reasoning that he needs to protect jobs of American citizens indicates that non-immigrant work visas too might be on his target.

The United States, due to coronavirus, has experienced a record layoff. As off last week, a record number of 22 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits. The move comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented economic crisis looming on account of the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a heavy toll on the US. The country has been the most affected globally, both in terms of number of confirmed Covid-19 cases and death toll. As of Tuesday morning in India, the country’s total cases stood at 792,759, and death toll at 42,514…ReadMore

As SC starts CAA hearings, Congress looks to broad base protests to economy

It would get difficult for Congress to champion the cause of anti-CAA protesters if the apex court were to find the controversial law constitutional

As protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rage across the country, Congress is increasingly feeling the need to broad-base them to encompass issues of economic slowdown, joblessness, inflation and farm distress.

On January 28, days ahead of the Union Budget, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will address a public meeting in Jaipur. The focus of his speech would be unemployment and inflation. This will be the first of several such meetings he will address across the country, party sources said. The former Congress president is also likely to address a rally in Madhya Pradesh, where he will focus on issues confronting the farmers, tribals and rural workers. Further, he is likely to address a meeting of small and medium industrialists, traders and professionals at Mumbai. Interestingly, the party is yet to schedule any meeting in Delhi, which will vote to elect its new Assembly on February 8.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will start hearing over a hundred petitions challenging Citizenship Amendment Act as unconstitutional from Wednesday. Congress strategists, and those of other opposition parties, understand it would get difficult for them to champion the cause of anti-CAA protesters if the apex court were to find the controversial law constitutional. They are uneasy that such a situation might trigger further protests, and with mainstream political parties unable to stand with the protesters, radical elements could take over the protests.

The issue of the National Population Register (NPR) is similarly vexed. The Congress-led state governments, and those of other opposition parties, cannot afford to flout the Centre’s notification to conduct the NPR. If they do, these state governments could run the risk of getting sacked.

Back immigration or risk missing out on tech boom: Microsoft CEO Nadella

“…people will only come when people know you’re an immigrant friendly country.”, Nadella said.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he worries that mistrust between the US and China will increase technology costs and hurt economic growth at a critical time. Using the $470 billion semiconductor industry as an example of a sector that is already globally interconnected, Nadella said the two countries will have to find ways to work together, rather than creating different supply chains for each country.

“All you are doing is increasing transaction costs for everybody if you completely separate,” Satya Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead conference in Davos. That’s a concern as the executive said the world is on the cusp of a revolution around technology and artificial intelligence. “If we take steps back in trust or increase transaction costs around technology, all we are doing is sacrificing global economic growth,” he said.

The Trump administration is considering steps to further limit the ability of US companies to supply Huawei Technologies, China’s flagship tech company, in addition to pressuring countries around the world to avoid using its equipment for 5G mobile networks.The agreement signed last week between the US and China was “not sufficient,” said Nadella. Yet, he represented “progress” on the issue of intellectual property protections for US technology companies working with China…

Trump ends 'Dreamer' immigration programme, 800,000 face unsure future

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions

 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped an Obama-era programme that protects from deportation immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children, delaying implementation until March and giving a gridlocked Congress six months to decide the fate of almost 800,000 young people.

As the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the five-year-old programme were plunged into uncertainty, business and religious leaders, mayors, governors, Democratic lawmakers, unions, civil liberties advocates and former Democratic President Barack Obama all condemned Trump’s move.

The action was announced not by Trump but by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, who called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme an unconstitutional overreach by Obama. There will be an “orderly, lawful wind-down,” Sessions said.

Trump later issued a written statement saying that “I do not favour punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognise that we are (a) nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.”

He denounced Obama’s programme as an “amnesty-first approach” toward illegal immigrants and pressed his nationalist “America First” message, saying that despite concerns voiced by his critics about the fate of the Dreamers, “Above all else, we must remember that young Americans have dreams too.”

On Tuesday evening, the Republican president tweeted that lawmakers now had six months to “legalize DACA” and that if they did not, he would “revisit this issue!”

Obama issued his own statement calling Trump’s action a political decision, defending DACA’s legality and urging Congress to protect Dreamers....(Read More)

US may lose Indian talent, competitive edge due to H-1B clampdown: Report

                                                                                                                                                       

The brain-gain to India under H-1B outweighs any brain-drain, both countries' economies                                            have gained                                          

    

Clampdown on H-1B programme will make it difficult for the US IT sector to attract open talent from countries like India and America might lose its competitive edge, a top American think-tank has said.

As the Trump administration is carrying out a review of the non-immigrant visas, the Center for Global Development (CGD) in a report said that H-1B visa, the most sought after by Indian IT professionals, is beneficial for both India and the US.

"It is really important to make sure that the I-T sectors from both countries are allowed to attract the right kind of people, because they really allow for innovation and growth in both the countries," Gaurav Khanna, fellow at the CGD and co- author of the research paper, said.

The report titled 'The IT Boom and Other Unintended Consequences of Chasing the American Dream' takes an in-depth look at how the H-1B visa programme affects both the US and Indian economies.

"Both the economies have really benefited from the H-1B programme," he told PTI.

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"What our paper is really trying to stress, is that on average the US is better off because of the H-1B programme. So clamping down on the H-1B programme will basically not allow the US IT sector to attract the open talent from places like India. The US might then lose its competitive edge in IT production," he warned, adding that IT companies might move to countries like Canada in the event of large scale clampdown on H-1B visas.

Khanna said the research has shown that India has been a beneficiary of brain-gain, rather than brain drain due to the visa programme....(READ MORE)