Only three per cent of applicants are likely to get a green card in the United States in 2024, according to a recent study from the Cato Institute.
According to a new white paper report, the discovery of a significant backlog of nearly 34.7 applications shows how big the problem really is, VisaGuide.World reports.
Legal immigration caps plus uncapped categories permit only about 1.1 million green cards for the fiscal year 2024, meaning that 97 percent of green card applicants will not receive one this year.
Cato Institute’s report shows that the total caps amount to just under 1.1 million for fiscal year 2024. This means that 97 per cent of green card applicants who have already applied will not receive green cards this year.
“Although this paper will refer to them as ‘applicants,’ these aspiring immigrants are mostly stuck at earlier stages in the process before they can even formally submit a green card application.” Cato Institute
There are several types of green cards from which internationals can benefit, among them:
- Family-Based Green Card
- Employment-Based Green Card
- Humanitarian Green Cards
According to the Cato Institute, the number of pending Family-sponsored applicants has surged every year since the 1970s, reaching 8.3 million. The report says that only eight per cent will receive green cards this year.
The white paper indicates that just 8 per cent of applicants for Employment-Based green cards will be successful in their citizenship efforts. The report shows that the employment-based backlog has increased to 1.8 million as of March 2023.
As for asylum, nearly 1.8 million immigrants have applied for asylum and have pending cases. There is no cap on asylum for the asylum category, but the government processes fewer applications than it receives, thus leading to a backlog.
Cato Institute indicates that only 3 per cent of the total will be approved in 2024.
Addressing Backlogs
According to the report, to address green card backlogs, Congress should start by waiving unnecessarily onerous rules and arbitrary caps in order to approve current green card applicants.
The report says that after the current backlog reflects years of unaddressed requests, annual legal immigration would only need to increase more gradually in order to meet the future demand.
Increasing Fees
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it is increasing certain immigration and naturalisation fees starting from April 2024.
Among the affected categories will also be employment-based petitions, family-based immigration applications and US naturalisation cases.
After leaving these fees unchanged for the three years following the passage of the [USCIS Stabilization] Act, [the US Department of Homeland Security, or DHS] is now increasing the premium processing fees USCIS charges for all eligible forms and categories to reflect the amount of inflation from June 2021 through June 2023.
However, the White House said that the US President is doing everything he can to improve the H-1B visa process, green card backlog and other issues related to the country’s legal immigration system.