A proposal to the effect was moved by eminent Indian American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria
A presidential advisory commission has unanimously voted to recommend President Joe Biden to process all applications for green cards or permanent residency within six months, a report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
To be now sent to the White House for approval, recommendations of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders( PACAANHPI) if adopted is likely to bring cheers to the hundreds and thousands of Indian Americans and those waiting, some for even for decades, for a Green Card.
A proposal in this regard was moved by eminent Indian American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria during the meeting of the PACAANHPI, during which all its 25 commissioners unanimously approved it.
To reduce the green card backlog, the advisory commission recommended US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review their processes, systems, policies and establish new internal cycle time goals by streamlining processes, removing redundant steps if any, automating any manual approvals, improving their internal dashboards and reporting system and enhancing policies.
The recommendations aim to reduce processing time for all forms related to family based green card application, DACA renewals, all other green card applications within six months and issue adjudicate decisions
The commission recommended National Visa Center (NVC) State Department facility to hire additional officers to increase their capacity to process green card applications interviews by 100 per cent in three months from August 2022, and to increase Green card applications visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150 per cent – up from capacity of 32,439 in April 2022 — by April 2023.
“Thereafter Green Card visa interviews and visa processing timeline should be a maximum of six months,” it said.
Only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued in fiscal 2021 out of the annual 2,26,000 green cards available, leaving hundreds of thousands of green cards unused (with many likely to be permanently wasted in the future), and keeping many more families needlessly separated.
There were 4,21,358 pending interviews in April compared to 4,36,700 in March, said the policy paper by Bhutoria.
Noting that while the US population has grown substantially in recent decades, the immigration system has not changed to keep pace, he said.
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