Degree holders may wait for 150 years for a green card

Agencies
June 16, 2018

Washington, Jun 16: Indians with advanced degrees may have to wait for over 150 years for a green card which authorises them to live and work in the US permanently, according to projections by a think-tank.

The new calculation on the Green card wait period by Cato Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, comes after the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently released number of applicants for such cards.

The calculation is based on the number of green card issuances in 2017.

As of April 20, 2018, there were 632,219 Indian immigrants and their spouses and minor children waiting for green cards also known as legal permanent residency cards.

The shortest wait is for the highest skilled category for EB-1 immigrants with "extraordinary ability". EB stands for employment based.

The extraordinary immigrants from India will have to wait "only" six years, Cato Institute said in its latest report.

According to the USCIS, there are 34,824 Indian applicants under the EB-1 category. Along with their 48,754 spouse and children, 83,578 Indians are in line for a green card under the EB-1 category.

EB-3 immigrants— those with bachelor’s degrees— will have to wait about 17 years, Cato Institute said. As of April 20, there were 54,892 Indians in this category. Clubbed with 60,381 spouses and children, the total number of Indians waiting for green card in EB-3 category are 1,15,273.

However, the biggest backlog is for EB-2 workers, who have advanced degrees.

"At current rates of visa issuances, they will have to wait 151 years for a green card. Obviously, unless the law changes, they will have died or left by that point," Cato Institute said.

According to the USCIS, there were 2,16,684 primary Indian applicants under EB-2 category and 2,16,684 spouses and children, thus making a total of 4,33,368.

This is primarily because of the existing laws which impose per-country-limit of seven percent.

In all 306,400 primary Indian applicants are waiting for their green cards. Clubbed with their spouses and children numbering 325,819; as many as 632,219 Indians in all are waiting for their green cards.

In 2017 only 22,602 Indians were issued the legal permanent residency cards. Of these 13,082 were in the EB-1 category, 2,879 in EB-2 category and 6,641 in the EB-3 category, according to the latest USCIS figures.

Cato Institute said the green card allocation is not based on the backlog, so 69 percent of the backlog is in the EB-2 category, but it received only 13 percent of the green cards issued in 2017.

There are two reasons for this, it explained.

First, each category is guaranteed a minimum of 40,040 green cards, so the allocation between categories does not adjust when one category has higher demand than the others.

Second, EB-2 is currently subject to the per-country limits, that prevent Indian immigrants from receiving more than seven percent of the green cards issued in the category, the report said.

Cato Institute notes that for employment-based green cards, the per-country limit only applies in full force when the category is filled up, meaning that if some green cards would go to waste, Indian immigrants can receive above the per-country limit of 7 percent. For this reason, Indian immigrants received nearly 18 percent of the total green cards issued in the EB-3 category in 2017.

Referring to the inconsistency in the application of the per-country limit, the report said if the per-country limits end up not applying fully for EB-2 during some future years, they could receive their green cards before the next century.

For example, if they received the same number of green cards as EB-3 workers did in 2017, they would have to wait "only" for 65 years, rather than 151 years as projected based on the number of issuances in 2017.

On the other hand, if the per-country limits end up applying fully for EB-3 workers after 2018, they could end up having to wait more than 40 years, rather than 17 years, the report said.

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June 1,2020

Washington, Jun 1: As protesters gathered outside the White House on Friday night in Washington DC, US President Donald Trump was briefly taken to the White House underground bunker, The New York Times reported citing a person having firsthand knowledge about the incident.

Trump was there for less than an hour before being brought upstairs. After hundreds of people surged towards the White House on Friday, Secret Service and the United States Park Police officers sought to block them.

Trump's team was surprised by the protests that were witnessed outside the White House on Friday night, according to the US daily. It is, however, unclear if Melania Trump and Barron Trump were also taken down with him.

in response to the continuing protests against the death of African-American man George Floyd in police custody.

National Guard members have been activated in 15 states and Washington, DC with another 2,000 prepared to activate if needed.

Demonstrators across the United States have been protesting since May 25, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died under the police custody in the city of Minneapolis.

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News Network
May 8,2020

New York, May 8: An Indian-American father and daughter, both doctors in New Jersey, have died due to the COVID-19, with Governor Phil Murphy describing their demise as “particularly tough" and hailed them for dedicating their lives for others.

Satyender Dev Khanna, 78, was a surgeon who served both on staff and as the head of the surgical departments for multiple hospitals across New Jersey for decades.

Priya Khanna, 43, was a double board-certified in both internal medicine and nephrology. She was Chief of Residents at Union Hospital, now part of RWJ Barnabas Health.

"Dr Satyender Dev Khanna and Dr Priya Khanna were father and daughter. They both dedicated their lives to helping others. This is a family dedicated to health and medicine. Our words cannot amply express our condolences," New Jersey Governor Murphy tweeted on Thursday.

“Both dedicated their lives to helping others and we lost both of them to COVID-19,” Murphy said during a press conference on Thursday, saying their demise is a "particularly tough one.”

Satyender passed away at the Clara Maass Medical Center where he had worked for more than 35 years.

Murphy described him as a "pioneering doctor” who was one of the first surgeons to perform laparoscopic surgery in the state. He is being remembered by colleagues as a “gentle and caring physician."

“And for a doctor, I'm not one, but I would bet, I don't think there could be a more fitting way to be remembered, or a nurse or a healthcare worker of any kind,” Murphy said, adding that the doctor had a passion for bicycling, and he often found peace from the hustle of the hospital in biking along the Jersey Shore.

Priya did all of her medical training in New Jersey and then did her fellowship in nephrology in South Jersey with the Cooper Health System. Like her father, she too worked at Clara Maass, where she died.

She was also Medical Director at two dialysis centres in Essex County and “took pride” in teaching the next generation of doctors, Murphy said, adding that the ICU physician who cared for Priya Khanna was trained and taught by her as well.

Follow live developments on the coronavirus pandemic here

“Priya will be remembered as a caring and selfless person who put others first. And even while in the hospital, fighting her own battle, she continued to check up on her mom and dad and her family,” Murphy said.

“This is a family, by the way, dedicated to health and medicine,” he said.

The governor spoke with Satyender's wife Komlish Khanna, who is a paediatrician. The couple has two more daughters - Sugandha Khanna, an emergency medicine physician and Anisha Khanna, a paediatrician.

“Unbelievable. Our words cannot amply express our condolences nor, I am sure, can they express the pain that the Khanna family is feeling. But I hope that the fact that our entire state mourns with them is some small comfort. And we mourn everyone we have lost. We commit in their memory to saving as many lives as we can,” Murphy said.

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News Network
May 11,2020

Kabul, May 11: Four back-to-back roadside bombs exploded in a northern district of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Monday, wounding four civilians including a child, police said. Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said a clearance team was at the site of the attacks.

Militants have carried out several roadside bombings and rocket attacks in Kabul and other parts of the country in recent weeks, but Monday's four consecutive explosions appeared to be the first coordinated effort for some months.

The Taliban has not carried out any large attacks in the city since they signed a landmark withdrawal deal with the US in February, meant to pave the way for peace in the country. No group has claimed the attacks. The explosions come as authorities are trying to impose a lockdown in the capital to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country.

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