US House votes to end country caps for work visas; India to benefit

The bill (HR 3012) passed by the US House of Representative in a voice vote, from both the parties, completely eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas and raises the per-country cap from seven per cent to 15 per cent for family-based visas, all without adding even a single additional visa.The current Immigration and Nationality Act generally provides that the total number of employment-based immigrant visas made available to natives of any single foreign country in a year cannot exceed seven per cent of the total number of such visas made available in that year, a result of which a large number of qualifies Indians in particular are rejected because of this anomaly in the existing law.Supporters of this bill termed it as pro-growth and pro-job. Speaking on the floor of the House in support of the bill, Congressman Steve Cohen said the bill removes the so-called "per-country" limits from applying to employment-based green cards."Current immigration law provides 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants. The law, however, prevents any one country from receiving more than 7 per cent or 9,800 of the total 140,000 visas," he said. "Because of this per-country limit, a country like India, with a population of 1.2 billion, is limited to the same number of visas as a country like Iceland, with a population of 300,000 and a lot of ice," he argued. "This makes no sense and has resulted in decades-long backlogs for nationals from India, as well as China, and it makes it impossible for certain US employers to attract and retain certain essential workers they need to help keep America competitive. Indeed, from India and China there are many people trained in STEM areas that we need in our country to keep competitive," Cohen said. He said that eliminating the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants would level the playing field and treat everyone on a first-come, first-served basis. "Because the bill does not provide additional green cards, it does not address the current overall backlogs. And that's unfortunate. But the bill does treat people and those backlogs more equitably. To make sure that there are no unintended consequences, the elimination of the per-country limit is phased in slowly over 3 years," he said.