With the new reformsin the immigration bill, thousands of individuals and families were waitingyears in backlogs and grant legal status to millions of immigrants living inthe United States without legal status.
Although the billdoes not contain permanent structural changes to the legal immigration system,it would allow more persons to get legal status as compared to the previousimmigration bill.
Judiciary Committee,the House of Representatives and the Senate and the president passes any law inthe country. On September 10, 2021, the House Judiciary Committee released apress statement: “Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced the committeeprint for the Committee markup on Monday, September 13th onlegislative proposals under the budget reconciliation instructions.”
Also, on payment of asupplement fee of 1500 $ dreamers (both documented and non-documented) canadjust their status of permanent residence.
How much fee will becharged?
For different visacategories, different fee will be applicable. It will be as follow:
· The fee is USD 50,000 for the EB-5 category(immigrant investors). The provisions expire in 2031, the Forbes magazinereported.
· For a family-based immigrant who is sponsoredby a US citizen and with a “priority date that is more than 2 yearsbefore", the fee for getting a Green Card would be USD 2,500.
· The supplement fee would be USD 1,500 if anapplicant's priority date is not within two years but they are required to bepresent in the country, according to the committee print. This fee would be inaddition to any administrative processing fee paid by the applicant.
Earlier a bill waspassed which states that Legal dreamers (children of H-1Bs who have aged out orwill age out – turn 21) get a chance at obtaining permanent residency andcitizenship.
“This is a terrificbill. While it does not have everything, it would allow Indians in theemployment green card backlogs to seek a waiver of the numerical limitations bypaying a super fee of $5000 at the time of filing their final adjust ofstatus applications and get green cards,” said Cyrus D Mehta, founder of a NewYork Immigration-based law firm.
According to a study by David J Bier, immigration policy analyst at the CatoInstitute, the list of applicants for employment-based green cards (the EB2 andEB3 categories) is very long. The list of applications from India hastouched the figure of 7.41 lakh till April 2020 itself, whose waiting period isabout 84 years.
"Basically, this bill will help a few legal immigrantsabroad indirectly, but the main purpose is integration of existing immigrants.That’s a noble cause, but the immigration/migration part of immigration reformis just left out. No new pathways for workers, same system," he tweeted.
The Wire stated that mostworkers in the employment-based Green Card backlog are already in the UnitedStates on temporary nonimmigrant visas, such as the H-1B visa for workers inspecialty occupations that are renewable but greatly restrict beneficiariesfrom reaching their full potential.
Right now, no morethan seven per cent of employment-based green cards are available toindividuals from a single country, which has created a decades-long backlog forwould-be immigrants from India and China.