Amazon urges US immigration agencies to prevent green card wastage in FY 2022
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Green Card Wastage: Amazon has batted for its immigrant employees and has urged the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to regulate all available employee-lined green cards before September 30th, the end of fiscal 2022.
With almost 100,000 such green cards yet to be adjudicated as of June end, this request is timely and a few different US associations and leading business leaders are probably going to make a similar action.
Last December, in its response to Senator Thom Tillis, USCIS expressed that for fiscal 2022, the employment-based yearly limit will be around 280,000 because of unused family-based visa numbers available from the past fiscal.
In her post on the organization’s site, Beth Galetti, Senior VP (Human Resources) at Amazon posts, “Immigrants faced long waits for green cards before 2020, however, the Covid-19 pandemic created even greater delays. In fact, more than 65,000 employment-based green cards went unused in 2021.”
Also, “In 2022, Congress allocated 281,000 employment-based green cards, however, more than 100,000 still required to have been adjudicated as of June 30,” she points out.
US immigration agencies to prevent green card wastage in FY 2022
Amazon values the efforts of the USCIS which include granting more than 176,000 employment-based green cards through June 30. However, an enormous backlog remains ahead of the September deadline. If the green cards are not utilized, they are not transferred or added to next year’s count.
Amazon employees impacted by the backlog already live in the US and contribute to local economies. Distributing green cards not only benefits those immigrant employees and their families. It economically and culturally enhances US organizations, neighborhoods, and regions.
To help our groups and communities, Amazon continues to reach out directly to USCIS. The agency within the Department of Homeland Security administers green cards. We are strongly urging the office to give all green cards by the deadline. Moreover, we realize that this backlog has a big impact on our employees’ lives and families. Which is the reason we have also offered to help USCIS resolve these cases and efficiently eliminate the backlog. We hope USCIS will take the important and urgent step of allocating all green cards during the current year, summarizes the post.
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Immigration experts call attention to the employment-based green card wastage. Disproportionately impacts the Indian diaspora in the US, more than some other groups. This is because Indians make up more than 80% of those waiting for their green card.
Also, USCIS in its letter mentioned the help that Congress could give to enable it. The processing of all employment-based green cards during the fiscal ended 30th September 2020. Unfortunately, while bills address some of these suggestions. For example, the recapture of unused green cards has been introduced, these have not seen the light of the day.
