Indian professionals face an unprecedented backlog in the employment-based green card queue, with wait times now stretching nearly two centuries.
The employment-based green card backlog for Indian nationals has reached a breaking point. The wait time for Indians seeking permanent residency through the employment-based preference categories now exceeds 179 years, according to recent data. This staggering delay stems from the per-country cap—a rule that limits green cards to 7% of the annual total per country, regardless of population or demand.
For context: a skilled Indian worker applying today under the EB-2 or EB-3 category would need to wait until the year 2203 to receive their green card, assuming no changes to the system and no acceleration in processing. The backlog has grown so severe that many professionals abandon the US employment path entirely, choosing instead to pursue residency in Canada, Australia, or the UK, where processing times run in months rather than decades.
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An Indian worker applying today would wait until 2203 to receive their green card.
The per-country cap was designed to ensure diversity in the immigration system. Instead, it has created a two-tier system where Indian and Chinese nationals—the two largest sources of employment-based green card applicants—face waits that make the process meaningless for most. A 35-year-old engineer applying today has virtually no chance of receiving a green card before retirement age.
Source: original report ↗
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