WASHINGTON, D.C.-The United States has warned that employment-based first-preference green cards for Indians could become unavailable within weeks because of heavy demand, adding fresh pressure to an already severe green-card backlog affecting Indian applicants.
The US State Department, in its September Visa Bulletin, said high demand and use of EB-1 immigrant visa numbers by applicants chargeable to India could exhaust the country’s allocation before the US fiscal year ends on September 30.
“High demand and number use by aliens chargeable to India in the EB-1 visa category may necessitate making the category unavailable in the coming weeks if India’s pro-rated limit in the EB-1 category is reached before the fiscal year ends,” the State Department said.
“This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly,” it said.
EB-1 is the employment-based first-preference category, covering priority workers including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers.
The warning is particularly significant for Indians seeking employment-based green cards, as other major categories are already severely constrained. India’s EB-2 category is listed as “U” — unavailable — for September, while the EB-3 India final action date is January 1, 2014, meaning that category’s queue stretches back more than 12 years. India’s unreserved EB-5 investor category is also unavailable for final action in September.
For September, the EB-1 India final action date is October 15, 2022. This means an Indian applicant generally must have a priority date earlier than the listed cutoff for a visa number to be available for final action, subject to other eligibility requirements.
The September filing dates offer somewhat more room, with India listed at December 1, 2023 for EB-1, January 15, 2015 for EB-2 and January 15, 2015 for EB-3. Applicants seeking adjustment of status inside the United States must check which chart US Citizenship and Immigration Services authorizes for use in a particular month.
The pressure on Indian employment-based applicants stems largely from heavy demand and statutory limits on the number of employment-based immigrant visas available each year. For fiscal 2026, the State Department says the worldwide employment-based preference limit is 186,317. US immigration law also generally imposes a 7 per cent per-country limit across family- and employment-based preference visas, although carryover provisions affect the final calculations. (IANS)