US proposes legislation to ease citizenship for immigrant children
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New legislation proposed by three Democratic Congresswomen could facilitate the Green Card backlog for Indians by giving citizenship to each one of the individuals who had legally entered the United States as immigrant children.
The American Dream and Promise Act, 2021, introduced on Wednesday by Lucille Roybal-Allard, Nydia Velazquez, and Yvette Clark, could help almost 200,000 immigrants who grew up under a temporary status in the country achieve US citizenship.
According to the bill, the candidate should have been under 18 when they came into the country and should have been continuously physically present in the United States since 1st January 2021.
The Bill looks to include dependents of H-1B and L-1 visa holders as well as those in line for an employment-based green card and gets rid of the danger of them leaving the country if they age out at 21.
Legislation to ease citizenship for immigrant children
As per a report by CATO Institute, there are around 157,000 Indian children in line for an employment-based green card as dependents and danger of losing status if this does not come through before they turn 21.
Apart from helping the dependents, it could also prove beneficial in reducing the overall backlog for employment-based green cards.
[New H-1B Visa Legislation Introduced in US Congress]
“This bill will help everybody in the EB green card backlog and also for many L, E, and H-1B visa holders because, as soon as these children get citizenship, they could petition for their parents if the children are more than 21,” said David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
“In other words, the bill could be an entryway to citizenship for the rest of the nearly 1 million employment-based immigrants waiting in the green card backlog and other people who may only have an H-1B visa as well. It will have a very large positive economic effect,” said Bier.
