Email about GC Wastage

Dear Representative,

I have been in this great country for 15 years and have an approved employment based immigration petition – yet I am an ‘alien’ in this country that I call home with 2 US-born kids. Every single day, I live in uncertainty, as my lawful status here is dependent on many factors – some outside my control. I am requesting your help to ask USCIS & DHS (Sec Mayorkas) to implement humane immigration policies and provide an official statement on their plan of action to avoid Green Card Wastage.

USCIS is setting up terrible precedent and undermines President Biden executive order [3] to Restore Faith in Legal Immigration System. Immigrant families will continue to live in uncertainty and many will have to self-deport due to the application backlog caused by barriers and bureaucratic delays in USCIS.

Remove barriers to Green Card processing so that all allocated Employment Greencards can be issued and avoid wastage.
Each year, certain numbers of Greencards (Lawful Permanent Residence/LPR/GC) are allocated towards the Employment Based category. Out of FY2020 ALLOCATION  of 156,500 Employment green cards, only 147,153 were issued by Sep 30, 2020, leading to 9347 green cards being wasted/lost forever. Imagine how many immigrant families who have been patiently waiting in line for a decade – could have benefited.

Due to under utilization of Family-based green cards, there is a Spillover, hence, FY2021 ALLOCATION for Employment is 262,000 and FY2022 ALLOCATION would be at least 290,000.

FY2021 Q1 & Q2, only 45,381 Employment Based Greencards were issued – which is only 17% of allocated. Projections suggests 66% green cards might be wasted forever. This is going to be devastating to immigrant families and cause an inexplicable amount of damage. 

Please note, we are aware of challenging times due to Covid-19. Yet, we strongly believe that there are procedural improvements that can help maximize processing of Green Card applications (i485).

• Each time a USCIS officer has a ‘touch point’ for an application, it increases processing times. Steps should be taken to decrease these ‘touch points’ by removing unnecessary steps.

• Most Employment Green Card Applicants are in the US since a decade. USCIS should simply reuse the fingerprints for both processing EAD/AP as well as Green Card.

• EAD/AP card(Employment Authorization Document, Advance Parole) were intended to provide interim benefit while immigrants wait for their green cards. USCIS should reduce manual intervention and automatically issue these immediately. Most immigrants have not received these even after 7 months wait, causing disruption in their lives.

• In 2017, USCIS under the Trump administration introduced in-person ‘interview’ requirements for the Employment Green Card, significantly increased processing times. This rule should be revoked immediately.

• To protect children from ‘ageing-out’, USCIS should use ‘Priority Date’ to lock child’s date. This would avoid deportation of children with no fault of their own.

• Based on prior data, if there is sufficient proof that there is no misuse in Employment green cards, then there should not be any reason to cause bureaucratic delay. To the extent that law permits, since most applicants are already in USA & vetted multiple times, USCIS could first approve all Adjustment of Status applications, so that all allocated numbers are utilized, and then if a subsequent background check reveals any discrepancy, USCIS could pursue appropriate follow-up actions.

• USCIS generates monthly report of number of applicants at various stages of Employment Green card process – to share with DHS & DOS. This report should be made public every month to ensure transparency.

• USCIS should share data of ‘number of applications received vs resources allocated’ – for various “product lines” by Service Center. Plan to ensure consistent processing times across Service Centers.

Fact of the matter is, if there is intent, it is possible. Intent is only shown for ‘popular’ immigrant product lines – not employment based. This is a make or break for many of us. How? There are 552,000 EB green cards available for FY2021 & FY2022 combined – all with an expiry date. Use it or lose it, since the unused Green Cards do not go back to the Family category. Based on whether USCIS issues 50% or 100% green cards, immigrants with approved petition date up to 2012 or 2015/2016 could receive their green cards. The ones who don’t, may lose this opportunity forever, as the regular yearly allocation combined with the discriminatory per country cap – gives them no chance of American Dream.

Trump-era rules made sure that woman of color (H4 derivatives of high-skilled immigrant) are forced out of work – 90,000 jobs lost. After a litigation, USCIS only agreed to backtrack the rule instead of allowing to work based on ‘receipt notice’ like they already to for other immigrants.

I am hesitant to travel outside the USA, not even to visit or care for family – the reason being – “would I be able to come back? Would it impact my application? would I lose my shot at green card?”. This, after living here since 2006 – on legal status. Is this President Biden’s America? How is it different from the Trump administration?

There have been no statements from USCIS & transparency is as good as none. USCIS took 112 days to publish Q1 results and have not published Q2 results yet. Again, I sincerely request, this is an urgent issue, we must ask USCIS, Tracy Renaud & Sec Mayorkas to take action. Please let me know when you are available to meet & discuss.

Best Regards,
High-skilled Immigrant