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A US presidential advisory committee has unanimously voted to recommend that the Biden administration process all outstanding US green card applications within the next six months. The recommendations were made by the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (PACAANHPI).
The recommendations will now be sent to US President, Joe Biden, for his approval. If the recommendations are approved, they will bring relief to hundreds of thousands of people who have waited years – in some case decades – to secure permanent residency in the US.
The proposal was first put forward by Ajay Jain Bhutoria, a prominent Indian-American community leader, during a recent meeting of the PACAANHPI in Washington DC. All 25 PACAANHPI commissioners unanimously approved the proposal.
Key proposal points
According to several sources, the key points of the proposal sent to President Biden, recommended that US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should:
Review its processes
Establish new internal cycle time goals by removing redundant steps
Automate any manual approvals
Improve their internal dashboards and reporting system
Enhance policies
The recommendations also state that the processing time for all forms relating to family based green card applications, DACA renewals, and all other US green card applications should be cut to six months and decisions should be made within six months of an application being received by USCIS.
National Visa Center
The proposal also urged the National Visa Center (NVC) to hire additional staff in order to increase its capacity to process green card application interviews. Meanwhile, the NVC was urged to increase green card application visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150% by April 2023.
The PACAANHPI is also pushing for USCIS to review requests for work permits, travel documents and temporary status extensions or changes, within three months and adjudicate decisions in order to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the US and work.
The commission recommended that USCIS expand premium processing to additional employment-based green card applications, all work permit petitions, and temporary immigration status extension requests, allowing applicants to pay $2,500 to have their cases adjudicated within 45 days in a phased approach.
US immigration system hasn’t adapted
Mr Bhutoria blasted the US immigration system for failing to adapt to rising population levels in recent decades. In the proposal sent to Biden, he highlighted the disproportionate figures of the family preference green cards issued against the number of green cards available.
The policy paper highlights that only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued in FY 2021, despite 226,000 green cards being available annually.
The figures show that hundreds of thousands of green cards went unused and kept many families apart needlessly, despite many of those affected being eligible for a US green card.
Mr Bhutoria said: “This takes an emotional toll on families and imposes clear logistical, economic, and emotional hardships on them. The growing nature of the backlogs makes the process uncertain and future planning impossible.”
Employment- and family-based immigration
Bhutoria also took aim at the ‘deep flaws’ of employment- and family-based immigration. He claimed that a lack of reforms have led to family-based US immigration levels being held at their ‘absolute minimum’ every year for the past 20 years.
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