Immense backlogs are holding up the processes of immigration from the United States. Unprecedented delays in processing millions of visas, work permits, green cards, and naturalization applications, as well as cases languishing in immigration court, are so severe that experts say they cannot be resolved without immigration reform.
Have passed more than three decades since Congress passed a major overhaul of the US immigration system.which today is a patchwork of pathways spread across multiple federal agencies based on factors including a person’s country of origin, family ties, and profession.
The Trump administration implemented changes that forced more time and expanded existing backlogs to unmanageable levels at every step, with a restrictive immigration policy.
“Wait times are increasing even though the policy is moving in the right direction, because it’s not moving as fast as the demand for these services is increasing,” said David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Institute. Cat. “There is no way to control these delays with just normal procedures and edge adjustments.”
Although delays are a hallmark of any bureaucratic process, in the context of immigration, the human cost can be profound.
A study by the Cato Institute estimates that 1.6 million people who have been sponsored by relatives to obtain a “green card” they will die before they can come to the US legally.
A “green card”, officially known as a permanent resident card, is an identity document that shows that a person has permanent residence in the United States. Green card holders are formally known as Lawful Permanent Residents.
Requests for official paperwork pending with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have increased since the start of the pandemic, reaching almost 8.6 million in March 2022.
Immigration courts have 1.8 million cases pending, 25% more than at the beginning of the fiscal year, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan think tank at Syracuse University.
Among those eligible for permanent residence, usually through sponsorship from a family member or employer, delays have become extremely long for people from countries like India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines. This is because the US allows only up to 7% of green cards issued each year to be for people from a given country.
Wait times for unmarried adult children of permanent residents are from start to finish: 8-9 years; 10+ years for citizens of the Philippines; 20+ years for citizens of Mexico
The waiting times for married adult children of US citizens are from start to finish: 13-14 years; 22+ years for citizens of the Philippines and Mexico
Immigrant workers seeking a green card, which denotes lawful permanent residence in the United States, now face a wait of more than three years to cut through the government regulatory quagmire.
Congress authorizes up to 675,000 green cards each year, most of them reserved for family members of US citizens or residents. The law allows any family-sponsored green card not issued in one year to move into the employment category the next year, before it is declared invalid. Last fiscal year, the federal government failed to issue nearly 67,000 available green cards before they expired on September 30.
This situation does not include a major immigration legalization problem that has been pending for years, both for the government and for Congress: find legal avenues so that the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States can access a path to citizenship.
Leading immigrant advocacy groups have called on the Joe Biden administration to remove immigration policy take a backseat and finally pressure Congress to take action that truly addresses America’s immigration problems, before the next midterm elections, in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform that organizes immigration in America.
Source: La Opinion
