Process All Green Cards Within 6 Months, US Presidential Panel Recommends

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To be sent to the White House now for approval, recommendations of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, if adopted is likely to bring cheers to tens of thousands of Indian-Americans and those waiting, some for even for decades, for a Green Card.

Washington: A US presidential advisory commission has unanimously voted to recommend President Joe Biden to process all applications for green cards or permanent residency within six months.To be sent to the White House now for approval, recommendations of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders( PACAANHPI) if adopted is likely to bring cheers to tens of thousands of Indian-Americans and those waiting, some for even for decades, for a Green Card.

A proposal in this regard was moved by eminent Indian-American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria during the meeting of the PACAANHPI, during which all its 25 commissioners unanimously approved it.

The proceedings of the meeting here in the national capital was webcast live last week.

To reduce, pending green card backlog, the advisory commission recommended US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review their processes, systems, policies and establish new internal cycle time goals by streamlining processes, removing redundant steps if any, automating any manual approvals, improving their internal dashboards and reporting system and enhancing policies.

The recommendations aim to reduce the cycle time for processing all forms related to family based green card application, DACA renewals, all other green card applications within six months and issue adjudicate decisions within six months of application received by it.

The commission recommended National Visa Center (NVC) State Department facility to hire additional officers to increase their capacity to process green card applications interviews by 100 per cent in three months from August 2022, and to increase Green card applications visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150 per cent – up from capacity of 32,439 in April 2022 – by April 2023.

“Thereafter Green Card visa interviews and visa processing timeline should be a maximum of six months,” it said.

Aimed at making it easier for the immigrants to stay and work in the country, the commission recommended that USCIS should review requests for work permits, travel documents and temporary status extensions or changes within three months and adjudicate decisions.

Only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued in fiscal 2021 out of the annual 226,000 green cards available, leaving hundreds of thousands of green cards unused (with many likely to be permanently wasted in the future), and keeping many more families needlessly separated.