Uncapped Potential
A case for ending country-based green card quotas
by Sarah Roberts ’24, an intended Philosophy concentrator and an Associate Editor of the magazine at BPR infographic by Jiahua Chen ’24 and Madi Ko ’21
In 2016, John Doe, an Indian national who earned a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University, founded a US-based computer vision company. For three years straight, Doe participated in the United States temporary work visa lottery while pursuing permanent residence. Doe’s lottery entries were unsuccessful, and the delays in the green card process prompted Doe to leave the United States for his home country and take his company with him, resulting in the layoff of 20 American employees. Today, millions of high-skilled immigrants are stuck in this frustrating limbo, waiting years to become “green card holders,” or permanent residents of the United States. Currently, there are annual limits and per-country green card quotas based on the applicant’s “state of chargeability,” which is most commonly their country of birth. These quotas create enormous backlogs that bring uncertainty about immigrants’ future status and discourage many international students, professionals, and entrepreneurs—some of the United States’ most talented immigrants—from building a career and a life in America. Failure to solve this problem threatens the competitiveness of many domestic companies and undermines US innovation, resulting in preventable economic losses. Moreover, the inequitable distribution of per-country green card quotas for highly educated immigrants is blatantly discriminatory, as it privileges nationality over merit. Congress must reevaluate its green card limits based on state of chargeability, especially as the demand for green cards continues to soar. In the US, applying for a green card is a multistep process. First, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approves an employment-based immigrant petition. The beneficiary of this petition can then apply for a green card only if the quota set for their state of chargeability has not already been reached for the year. If the quota has been filled, the applicant enters
the green card waitlist, where they are stuck in limbo until a green card becomes available. In a supposed attempt to democratize the share of green cards, the US prevents immigrants from any individual birthplace from receiving more than seven percent of issued green cards in a year. As a result, the backlog consists almost entirely of immigrants from countries with the largest number of petitioners, such as India and China. Indian immigrants have the largest backlog, making up 75 percent of the total waitlist, with a hopeless wait of up to 50 years for talented (and often US-educated) professionals and entrepreneurs. At the current rate of increase, the US’s total green card backlog will surpass 2.4 million people by 2030. The US’s current green card system generates both overt and hidden economic losses. Many immigrants waiting to become permanent residents have skills in short supply in the US labor market, particularly in STEM fields. The largest number of backlogged applications for Indian and Chinese immigrants occur in the EB-2 and EB-3 green card categories, which are the primary green
cards given to foreign doctors, skilled workers, and other professionals with undergraduate and graduate degrees. On average, Indian and Chinese immigrants receive wage offers that are about 30 percent higher than the average offer for other EB-2 and EB-3 petition beneficiaries. Clearly, these individuals are in high demand in the labor market and are filling much-needed positions. There is no sound economic reason to uphold policies that make these higher-paid immigrants wait longer for green cards because of their birthplace. It is also worth noting that over 92 percent of EB-2 and EB-3 individuals from India who receive green cards are already in the United States working with temporary status, mainly under the H-1B work visa or F-1 student visas. Unlike green cards, H-1B work visas and F-1 student visas are issued without regard to nationality, with the former only having an overall annual cap instead of a per-country cap. H-1B workers can renew their visas indefinitely as long as they remain on the green card waitlist, which underscores the arbitrary nature of the state of chargeability rule.
“Currently, there are annual limits and per-country green card quotas based on the applicant’s ‘state of chargeability,’ which is most commonly their country of birth.”
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