Some 410,000 people are waiting for interviews with the State Department to get green cards, mostly through immediate relatives. They qualify; it is just a processing delay
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe hurdles foreigners face trying to live in America have increased. . In 2019, before the pandemic closed government offices, just 61,000 people were waiting for an interview. Since July last year the backlog has shrunk from 532,000. But only around 30,000 interviews are being scheduled a month, fewer than before the pandemic. The only reason the backlog is not growing seems to be that fewer people are being asked to an interview.
The number of fiancé visas, issued to foreign partners of Americans ahead of their weddings, has also fallen sharply. Permanent residents who want to become naturalised citizens now have to wait around a year, up from eight or so months before the pandemic. Last year 150,000 potential green cards for non-immediate family members, which are subject to a congressional cap, were “wasted”, as they were not issued in time.
Green cards that are sponsored by employers are also subject to a cap, by country of origin. In the case of migrants from a few countries, in particular India, the number of qualifying candidates grotesquely exceeds the cap. Hundreds of thousands of workers who would be entitled to green cards remain tied to the employer that sponsored their original visa.
This gumming up is only partly due to the pandemic. Under the presidency of Donald Trump, staff imposed ever more burdens onCitizenship and Immigration Services while at the same time starving it of funding. “The Trump administration literally came very close to bankruptingin 2020,” says Greg Chen, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Congress stepped in with more money, but 20% of positions remain unfilled.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline"Green-card blues"
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