New Immigration rules highly tilted in favor of Illegal Immigrants

24 May, 2007: New immigration policy is heavily tilted in favor of illegal immigrants and is adversely affecting the fate of tens of thousands of high-skilled Indian professionals waiting to be permanent US residents, according to advocates of high-tech immigration and Indian activists.

Immigration bill, currently being debated in Congress, will exacerbate their agony instead of resolving the matter. More than 450,000 Indian professionals are caught up in the H1-B-Green Card gridlock. Notwithstanding support of US high-tech companies such as Microsoft and Cisco, and business-industry lobbying groups, the ongoing debate centers mainly on the 12 million mostly illegal immigrants, who, under the new proposals being mooted, will jump ahead of high-skilled Indians and qualify to become US citizens.

As per provisions of the proposed bill, some of the new rules being considered would deal a severe blow to plans of skilled Indian professionals. H1b Visa holders would be required to annually renew their visa and there is a proposal to reduce skilled worker Green Cards from 140,000 to 90,000. The new merit-based points system is also loaded against skilled professionals, they say. For instance, economic contribution by the undocumented is recognized by awarding points for property ownership but not for people working legally.

At the current rate of issuing green cards, which is about 10000 a year, the total queue would take about 45 years to clear. This is bound to aggravate the problems of skilled immigrants from India, estimated to be nearly half million, mired in the great wrangle in the United States. To further stymie things, there is a cap of seven per cent of Green Cards that are allowed to be allocated to immigrants, including their dependents, from any one country. This is meant to avoid monopolization by any one country, but it adversely affects countries such as India, China and Russia, which send far more high skilled workers to the US than others.

Article courtesy: Ms Soniya, CFO of trade portal www.b2blounge.com