Trump Wants To End Lottery-Based Visa System; Merit-Based Visa Only Option?
The merit-based visa system will end the tremendous backlog that exists in the system and give chance to high-skilled individuals.
Every year, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives around 1,00,000 applications for green card from highly skilled Indians who are working in the US under H1-B visa program. But, only 10% of them are able to secure the green card visa.
Currently, there is a massive backlog of green card applications from Indias who are highly skilled, and as per estimates, it will take 70 years to clear them at this rate.
In a boost to Indians seeking permanent residentship under green card, US President Trump has proposed to end lottery based, diversity visa program, and grant only skill-based visas to nationals of other countries.
This will be a huge advantage to Indians, because the majority of them are highly skilled immigrants, and they would be the biggest beneficiary of this transformation.
President Trump: End Diversity Visa Program!
Under The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, which Trump wants to permanently demolish, 50,000 immigrants are provided with a green card which helps them to stay in the US, and become permanent US citizens.
Under Immigration and Nationality Act, there are various ways to provide a green card, and this Diversity route is one of them. Nationals from those countries, from which 50000 or less than that nationals have secured permanent residentship in the last 5 years are considered under the Diversity visa program, and the green cards are allocated under a lottery process.
President Trump believes that such diversity based visa doesn’t solve US problems, and only skill based visa should be provided, even for permanent residentship and green cards.
As per a White House framework on immigration reform and border security issued by President Trump, it was said: “Eliminate lottery and reallocate the visas to reduce the family-based ‘backlog’ and high-skilled employment ‘backlog’,”
What Does It Mean?
Currently, under The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, these countries are not allowed any green card visa: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, the UK and Vietnam.
This is because more than 50,000 nationals from these countries have already been issued a green card in the last 5 years combined.
Now, once The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme ends forever, and only skill-based visa program is used for offering visa, then countries which have maximum skilled workers will get benefitted.
And this includes India because a majority of H1-B visa holders are Indians, and their visa would be first considered for green card allocation, which is currently not happening due to cap in the lottery based diversity visa.
In short, President Trump’s new visa change will directly help Indians to secure a visa, and this is something which Indians were hoping for long.
Rumors of this development have been coming in since last year, and very soon, this will become a law as well. Here are three reasons why a merit-based visa is beneficial for Indians.
We will keep you updated as more details come in.
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