U.S. business immigration law is full of complex and outdated provisions, which affect American businesses and their foreign employees on a daily basis. One such legal provision governs the allocation of “green cards,” or permanent residence, to professional employees with at least a Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent work experience). The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which has not been substantially amended since 1965, requires that no more than seven percent of all immigrants receiving green cards in any given year be from the same country (a so-called “per country quota”). Additionally, no more than 140,000 green cards can be issued per year for all employment-based categories, and both foreign-born employees and their immediate family members count against the cap, with family members accounting for approximately half of those green cards.

The combination of the per-country quotas and the cap on the total number of green cards available has led to extremely long delays for some foreign-born employees, especially those from India and China. According to a recent analysis from the Cato Institute, Indian nationals can expect to wait 54 years for a green card, even though they are sponsored for it by their American employer and are already working in United States on a temporary work visa. It is estimated that there are over 800,000 people on the waitlist for employment-based green cards, most of them Indian nationals.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]