Biden's immigration bill proposes to eliminate per country cap, to benefit Indian IT professionals
Washington: Joe Biden, hours after being sworn in as the 46th President, will send a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress which among other things proposes to eliminate the per country cap for employment-based green cards, a move that would benefit hundreds and thousands of Indian IT professionals in the US, whose current wait period for legal permanent residency runs into several decades.
Called the US Citizenship Act of 2021, the legislation modernises the immigration system, according to an incoming White House official.
It prioritises keeping families together, grows the country's economy, responsibly manages the border with smart investments, addresses the root causes of migration from Central America, and also ensures that the US remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Describing this as a common-sense approach to solving immigration challenges, focusing on what works, the US Citizenship Act 2021 creates a roadmap to citizenship for a population that lives and works in the United States.
January 1, 2021 is the cut-off date for those undocumented workers. Two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have been in the US for 10 years or longer.
It provides an immediate pathway to green cards for individuals who meet certain criteria as they were dreamers or have been recipients of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS), or are farm workers and meet certain criteria.
They can apply for citizenship three years later. For those who don't meet those qualifications, there will be another path to citizenship, where they would be in an interim status for five years.
Afterwards they would be eligible to apply for citizenship within three years after becoming green card holders.
According to the incoming White House official, the bill reforms the family-based immigration system by recapturing unused visas to clear the backlog, eliminating the lengthy waits, and it increases their per country visa caps.
It also eliminates the bars and other provisions that have kept families apart.
"The bill also clears employment-based immigration backlogs by reducing those backlogs altogether, eliminating the per country. It makes it easier for graduates of US universities with advanced degrees, in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields to stay in the US. It also improves access to green cards for workers from the low wage sectors, said the official.
It eliminates again, many of the unnecessary hurdles for employment based green cards. The bill also includes the No Ban Act that prohibits discrimination based on religion and limits presidential authority to issue future bans, the official added.
Indian IT professionals, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on the H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the coveted Green Card or permanent legal residency.
Post the November election outcome, a document of the Biden transition had said he will reform the visa system that has kept so many Indian families in waiting for too long.
"He (Biden) will support first reforming the temporary visa system for high-skill, specialty jobs to protect wages and workers, then expanding the number of visas offered and eliminating the limits on employment-based green cards by country, which have kept so many Indian families in waiting for too long," the document stated.
Biden's bill also increases the diversity visa programme from 55,000 visas to 80,000 per year. This bill is Biden's vision to fix the immigration system once and for all. But it's only the Congress that can provide immigrants with a path to citizenship.
Biden looks forward to working with the Congress to fix our broken immigration system and protect vulnerable populations, including dreamers, those with TPS farm workers and essential workers, said the official.
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Woman declared foreigner gets Indian citizenship under CAA
Guwahati (PTI): A woman, who spent two years in detention after being declared a foreigner, has been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Assam's Cachar district, her lawyer said.
The woman, identified as 59-year-old Depali Das, a resident of the Hawaithang area under the Dholai assembly constituency, was declared an illegal migrant by a Foreigners' Tribunal (FT) in February 2019.
Depali is the first declared foreigner in Assam who had once been lodged in a detention centre and later released on bail to receive Indian citizenship under the CAA.
The police detained her after the tribunal's order and sent her to the Silchar detention centre on May 10, the same year, where she remained for nearly two years before being released on bail on May 17, 2021, following a Supreme Court order, her lawyer Dharmananda Deb said.
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Depali was originally a resident of Dippur village under Dhirai police station in Bangladesh's Sylhet district and had married Abhimanyu Das of Parai village under Baniachong police station in Habiganj district in 1987, he said.
A year later, in 1988, the couple entered India and moved to Cachar district, where they have been living since then.
Her citizenship came under scrutiny in 2013 when police initiated an inquiry against her, and a chargesheet was submitted by the police on July 2, 2013, stating that Depali was a resident of Baniachong in Bangladesh and had entered India illegally after March 1971, Deb said.
"The chargesheet later proved crucial in her application for Indian citizenship under the CAA because the applicant must provide documentary evidence showing migration from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan," he said.
"In most cases, applicants fail to produce such documents, but in Depali's case, the chargesheet submitted by the police officer in 2013 clearly mentioned that she was from Bangladesh. The authorities accepted this document as valid proof," he added.
After her release on bail in 2021, she wanted to apply for citizenship under the CAA and had approached Deb for legal assistance once the rules of the Act were notified in 2024.
Her first hearing took place on February 24 last year at the office of the Superintendent of Post Offices in Silchar, which is designated to process such applications.
Two more hearings were held subsequently, after which all her documents were submitted online to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
"She was called to the office of the Superintendent of Post Offices in Silchar for a final appearance on May 25 last year after the field verification by Home Ministry officials, and on March 6, she received her Indian citizenship certificate," social activist Kamal Chakraborty said.
Her three children, a son and three daughters, can now rely on their mother's citizenship certificate if their own citizenship is ever questioned in the future, since all the children were born in India, he added.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, triggered widespread protests across the country, particularly in Assam.
The Act allows Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Parsi migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India between March 25, 1971 and December 31, 2014 to apply for Indian citizenship.
Before Das, four Bangladeshi nationals living in Assam were granted Indian citizenship under the CAA.
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