How many eb3 per year for india

Skilled and professional workers must look under "3rd" on the Employment-Based visa table. Unskilled workers must look at the "Other Workers" row. Also check the columns to see if your home country is separately named, which happens when the per-country limit is reached. When your priority date becomes current or when you see a "C" in the appropriate Visa Bulletin box, meaning visas are available to everyone in that category you submit your own application for an immigrant visa if coming from overseas or a green card if you're legally in the U.

You attend an interview at a U. As for the rest, here's what you can expect though this changes depending on how backed up with applications the various agencies get : The DOL will typically provide the prevailing wage determination within one to three months. Employer advertising and recruitment in preparation for the labor certification request will normally take at least two months and possibly several months.

After your employer files the request for labor certification, DOL will ordinarily take four to six months to issue a decision. After your employer submits a petition Form I to USCIS, the agency will likely take between three and 15 months to issue its decision.

Waits of up to three years are not unheard of. Although the waits can sound alarming, a long wait might not actually make a difference in your case. Your place in line on the waiting list, which could itself be several years long, has already been secured based on the date your employer submitted the labor certification application for you your priority date.

The date shown on the chart in your category 3rd preference reflects the priority dates of people finally receiving visas. So, for instance, if you were to see a date of "01NOV20," you would know that people whose labor certifications were filed on or before November 1, were at last receiving visas. Counting forward from that date to your own priority date, you can get a rough idea of how much longer you might wait.

After your priority date has become current, the subsequent timeline depends on whether you'll be doing consular processing from overseas or adjustment of status within the U. With consular processing, you'll receive some forms to fill out, and then some weeks after returning them, you'll be called for a visa interview at your local U. Broadly restructuring the entire employment-based immigration system could involve merit-based or place-based approaches. The United States currently has a population of almost 1 million lawfully present foreign workers and accompanying family members who have been approved for, but have not yet received, a green card or lawful permanent resident LPR status.

It has been growing for decades and is projected to double in less than 10 years. The employment-based immigrant backlog exists because the annual number of foreign workers whom U. This worldwide limit is split among five employment-based categories—the first three of which each receive 40, green cards, and the other two receive 9, each. See Appendix A for more detailed category information.

This percentage limit is breached frequently for the countries that send the largest number of prospective employment-based immigrants, due to reallocations from other categories and countries. For nationals from most immigrant-sending countries, the employment-based backlog does not pose a major obstacle to obtaining a green card.

Current wait times to receive a green card for those individuals are relatively short, often under a year. This is particularly the case for nationals from countries that send relatively few employment-based immigrants to the United States.

New prospective immigrants currently entering the backlog beneficiaries are double the available number of green cards. Many Indian nationals can expect to wait decades to receive a green card. For some, the waits will exceed their lifetimes.

For these prospective immigrants, many of whom already reside in the United States, the backlog can impose significant hardships. Prospective employment-based immigrants who lack LPR status cannot switch jobs, potentially subjecting them to exploitative work conditions. While waiting in the United States, backlogged workers often develop community ties, purchase homes and have children. Yet with a petition pending approval 3 and no green card, they cannot easily travel overseas to see their families, and their spouses may have difficulty obtaining legal permission to work.

If a prospective immigrant in the backlog dies while waiting for a green card, the individual's spouse and family lose their place in the queue, and in some cases their legal status to reside in the United States. For some U. In recent years, some Members of Congress have proposed solutions for addressing the employment-based backlog, ranging from changing the existing system's numerical limits to restructuring the entire employment-based immigration system.

The latter approach is widely viewed as legislatively and politically formidable. On the other hand, legislative proposals to alter the numerical limits—and to remove the per-country ceiling in particular—for employment-based immigrants have been introduced more regularly.

Supporters of the bill assert that it would improve the current employment-based immigration system, initially by granting more green cards to Indian nationals who generally have longer wait times under the current system compared with nationals from other countries. Ultimately, the bill would convert the per-country system into what some consider a more equitable first- come, first served system. They contend that the current backlog incentivizes some employers to hire and exploit Indian foreign workers, knowing that these workers will be unable to leave their jobs for many years without losing their place in the queue.

Those opposed to removing the per-country ceiling maintain that it fulfills its original purpose of preventing a few countries from dominating employment-based immigration. They contend that removing the ceiling merely shuffles the deck by changing who receives employment-based green cards, benefiting Indian and Chinese nationals at the expense of immigrants from all other countries.

Because Indian employment-based immigrants are employed largely in the information technology sector, such a change may benefit that sector at the expense of other industrial sectors that are also critical to the United States. This report analyzes how removing the per-country ceiling would impact the employment-based immigrant backlog over the next decade, using the provisions of S. While certain provisions analyzed are specific to only this bill, the broader objective of eliminating the per-country ceiling has appeared in numerous legislative proposals in past Congresses.

The report reviews the employment-based immigration system, discusses the key provisions of S. The report ends with concluding observations and some potential legislative options.

Each year, the United States grants LPR status to roughly 1 million foreign nationals, 14 which allows them to live and work permanently in this country. Among those granted LPR status are employment-based immigrants who serve the national interest by providing needed skills to the U. Each category has specific eligibility criteria, numerical limits, and, in some cases, application processes. As noted earlier, this percentage limit is breached frequently for the highest immigrant-sending countries, due to reallocations from other categories and countries.

The INA also contains provisions that allow countries to exceed the numerical limits set for each preference category and the per-country ceiling. First, unused green cards for each of the preference categories can roll down to be utilized in the next preference category.

Such provisions regularly permit individuals from certain countries to receive far more employment-based green cards than the limits would imply. Among prospective immigrants, the INA distinguishes between principal prospective immigrants principal beneficiaries , who meet the qualifications of the employment-based preference category, and derivative prospective immigrants derivative beneficiaries , who include the principals' spouses and minor children.

Derivatives appear on the same petition as principals and are entitled to the same status and order of consideration as long as they are accompanying or following to join principal immigrants.

While some prospective employment-based immigrants can self-petition, most require U. How prospective immigrants apply for employment-based LPR status depends on where they reside. If they live abroad, they may apply as new immigrant arrivals. If they reside in the United States, they may apply to adjust st atus from a temporary nonimmigrant status e. Employment-based immigration involves multiple steps and federal agencies. The Department of Labor DOL must initially provide labor certification for most preference category 2 and 3 immigrants.

USCIS assigns to each principal beneficiary and any derivative beneficiaries a priority date the earlier of the labor certification or immigrant petition filing date , representing the prospective immigrant's place in the backlog. Individuals must wait for their priority date to become current before they can continue the process to receive a green card. The discussion below of S. The EB4 category, which comprises special immigrants, and the EB5 category, which comprises immigrant investors, are statutorily included within the employment-based immigration system.

Those categories, however, represent distinct types of immigrants that fall outside of S. In the th Congress, the bill was introduced in the House as H. The bill was introduced in the Senate as S. There have been negotiated proposed amendments since then, and the bill's provisions may change further. In its current proposed form, S. Eliminating the per-country ceiling for employment-based immigrants would convert the current system into a first-come, first-served system, with the earliest approved petitions receiving green cards before those filed subsequently, regardless of country of origin.

The following analysis projects what the employment-based backlog would look like in 10 years under current law and compares that outcome with the projected outcome if S. The projection of the impact of S. For each category, the analysis estimates the number of new prospective immigrants whose petitions would be approved each year thereby added to the backlog , as well as the number of backlogged approved petition holders who would receive a green card each year thereby removed from the backlog.

Within each category, the analysis projects the resulting backlog for India, China, the Philippines for EB3 only , and all other countries or the "rest of the world" RoW. Projected annual additions to the employment-based backlog in the analysis are based on FY USCIS data on approved employment-based immigrant petitions. The analysis holds that number constant through the year period examined. Projected annual reductions to the employment-based backlog are based on green card issuances to approved petitioners and their derivatives.

Because S. Under S. For more detailed methodology information, see Appendix B. For each subsequent year, new petition approvals for prospective employment-based immigrants increase the backlog, and green card issuances to those individuals and their family members reduce the backlog. Because the INA treats derivative immigrants and principal immigrants equally for reaching the annual worldwide limit and maintaining the per-country ceiling, the analysis necessarily includes dependent family members of principal immigrants.

Each year's ending backlog balance equals the following year's starting balance. The following sections describe the results of the analysis. Table 1 presents the projected change in the current EB1 backlog after 10 years, as well as current and projected green card wait times.

All figures are estimates. Status quo projections are compared to those that model the impact of S. Table 1. Impacts under current law compared to S. Notes: FY refers specifically to the start of the fiscal year on October 1, , and FY refers to the start of the fiscal year on October 1, Wait times for a green card can also be interpreted as the number of years required for the EB1 backlog in FY or FY to be eliminated, either under current conditions or those that would be imposed by S.

In both scenarios, total annual EB1 green cards issued and total new beneficiaries entering the EB1 queue are assumed to remain the same—a conservative assumption see Figure 1 , below. Since the number of new beneficiaries exceeds the number of green cards issued each year, the total backlog under both scenarios is projected to more than double from , in FY to , in FY Nationals from all other countries would bear the impact of these reductions.

Citizenship and Immigration Services USCIS released new data showing that the green card backlog for employment-based immigrants in has surpassed 1. From November to April , the new data show that demand exceeded the number of green cards issued by more than , The monthly rate of increase in the backlog has tripled from the rate from to Despite the infusion of new green cards in , Indian employer-sponsored applicants face an 8-decade wait for green cards, and nearly , will die before they could even theoretically reach the front of the line.

E-Publication Reforming the Immigration System: A Brief Outline With the election of a new president, Congress has the opportunity to correct the two fundamental flaws that plague the current U. First, the system is too restrictive, and second, the system is too inflexible to adapt to new economic or social conditions, allowing small problems to build into national crises.

Here is a compendium of 52 reform proposals, both for enforcing the law, and for a less restrictive and more flexible immigration system. This backlog is caused entirely by insufficient numbers under the green card limits—not delays in processing applications.

When a petition is approved but no green card number is available, the immigrant enters the green card backlog. While more employment-based green cards will become available in fiscal year , the new numbers will prove to be far fewer than the number required to meaningfully reduce the backlog.

Congress needs to address this problem immediately. Figure 1 shows the number of backlogged green card petitions for employment-based immigrants and their families during the three points in time that USCIS has made these numbers available.

From April to November , the backlog increased ,—or 11, per month—while from November to April , it increased , or 30, per month. About half of the backlog comes from derivative beneficiaries spouses and minor children of the primary applicant. For nationals from large migrant-sending countries, such as India and China, the numerical limit and per-country ceiling has created long waits for employment-based green cards.

New prospective immigrants entering the backlog outnumber available green cards by more than two to one. For Indians, this backlog means that some prospective immigrants will have to wait decades to receive a green card , and many of them already reside in the United States. Immigrants who want to obtain an employment-based green card have to go through specific steps.

These include:. There are five categories based on the priority that immigrants are offered for green cards. As such, different categories will have their annual caps. Each category has a limited number of visas that can be granted each year, and as you can see, the unused number of visas spillover through other categories. When cap numbers become available, you will apply for your green card.