The US Is One Step Closer To Abolishing Country Limits On Green Cards With New EAGLE Act

Before being delivered to the White House to be signed into law by the president, the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment EAGLE Act, 2021, must be approved by the US Senate. So what is it, and how can it benefit you?

Bipartisan legislation to abolish the per-country quota on employment-based Green Cards has been presented in the US House of Representatives; this is expected to help IT experts who have been waiting for the Permanent Resident Card for years.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Congressman John Curtis introduced the bill.

A Green Card, often referred to as a Permanent Resident Card, is a legal document given to immigrants in the US as proof that they have been granted permission to live there permanently.

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The Existing US Immigration System

The existing immigration system, which imposes a 7% per nation limit on issuing the desired Green Card or permanent legal residency, is the worst for Indian IT workers, the majority of whom are highly talented and come to the US primarily on H-1B work visas.

The measure gradually eliminates the cap of 7% on immigration visas based on employment for each nation. However, the measure also increases the cap on family-sponsored visas from seven percent to fifteen percent per country.

Its predecessor, the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, was overwhelmingly approved by both parties in the House during the 116th Congress with a vote of 365 to 65.

Lofgren, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, stated on Wednesday that everyone knows how seriously flawed our immigration system has been for several years.

The underlying structure for assigning immigrant visas was last significantly revised in 1990, when Congress established the global numeric restrictions on visas and the 7% per-country quota that is still in place today, according to a lawmaker from the Democratic Party.

These restrictions eventually gave rise to backlogs that were unthinkable in 1990. The result is that nations with tiny populations now receive the same number of visas as those with huge populations.

“The outcome? “A person with lower qualifications from a small nation waits behind a person with higher qualifications from a huge population country who may significantly contribute to our economy by creating jobs,” she continued.

“It doesn’t make sense. As a result, foreign recruiters are increasingly wooing the most skilled individuals away from the United States. This harms the US economy.

The bicameral EAGLE Act takes our nation toward a birthplace-declining system that ultimately benefits America. Merely said, it will let US businesses concentrate on what they do most, which is recruiting intelligent individuals to develop goods and services that result in jobs for our communities, according to Lofgren.

According to Congressman Curtis, the 2020 census revealed that Utah has the greatest growth in the country due to significant expansion and development in the technology sector, which has created thousands of new employments in the state.

The Bipartisan EAGLE Act

While Utah has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, many businesses are forced to hire foreign workers and negotiate our complex immigration system because there aren’t enough Americans applying for these jobs.

“By eliminating per-country restrictions and establishing a first-come, first-served system focused on prestige instead of a nation of birth, the bipartisan EAGLE Act will create a much fairer employment-based visa system,” said Republican Curtis. This will make it simpler for Utah’s businesses to grow and compete internationally.

The bipartisan measure in the House has been hailed by Immigration Voice, a national non-profit organization that fights for the easing of constraints on work, travel, and conditions of employment suffered by more than 1.2 million lawful high-skilled immigrants in the US.

One of the very first bipartisan immigration proposals submitted by House members this year is the EAGLE Act, it was reported.

“This stops the unfair limit system that is based on nation of origin, which has caused over 1 million high-skilled Indian immigrants in the US to await 200 years for Green Cards while those from other nations do not have to wait at all.

The Immigration Voice stated that “other adjustments were also made to improve the law to incentivize the hiring of American workers and to ensure that citizens from all nations retain fair access to employment-based green cards.”

The EAGLE Act benefits everyone in the United States, “President and Co-Founder Aman Kapoor of Immigration Voice said.

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