Indians have a golden opportunity to go to the US this fiscal year.
This is simply because of a welcome announcement from the United States. Now, Indians who look for employment-based green cards there would have an opportunity now. This fiscal year, more visas will be available under high-priority categories.
Exceptionally High Number of Employment-based Visas
A spokesperson from the USCIS or US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced on Friday that the eligible employment-based green card applicants could have a chance to shift to a higher preference category. It is simply because the demand for immigrant talent is high, as the vacancies are exceptionally available there. For this reason, employment-based immigrant visas for the ongoing fiscal year ending September 30 are available in massive numbers.
Why are Visas Massively Available?
The statement from the USCIS office states that the overall annual limit for employment-based visas for the fiscal year 2022 is nearly double. It is exceptionally high as compared to the usual limit. Another reason for its high availability is that these cover all unused family-sponsored visa numbers from the fiscal year 2021, which was approximately 140,000.
Change of Status
The eligible applicants can apply to adjust their status to the EB1, which is for priority workers, or the second option, which is available for non-native professionals with advanced degrees or extraordinary skills.
A number of NRIs or India’s natives had been waiting for this news for a long time. Their long wait was all because of the overwhelming number of applications for employment-based green cards. Besides, the annual country bracket also restricted the applicants.
Reason for High Demand
There are hundreds of technology-based companies there that sponsor permanent residency for employees. These employers have put the applicants on hold. These applicants are the ones who run out of extensions on their H-1B work permit. The delay in offering it caused its heavy demand.
Rajiv S Khanna, managing attorney at Immigration.com said that people are walking in the air. They have been waiting for many years. The employers have put their applications on hold. Now, it’s likely to be over. We think that many NRIs can apply for their green cards under the EB2 category if they hurry up.
In the past, several people had downgraded their applications from EB2 to EB3 as that category was moving faster. They can now upgrade back to EB2.
Further, he said that the USCIS is willing to approve as many green card applications as they can. This is simply because there is a massive family quota available. Certainly, there is no incident of such happening in the past.
Visa Categories
Under the relevant statute, the first employment-based preference category would have all such visas that are not required in the fifth employment-based preference category.
Likewise, any visas not required in the first employment-based preference category would be available in the second employment-based preference category.
