TORONTO: Indian-American Healthcare Workers Protest Outside US Capitol Over Green Cards

TORONTO: A group of Indian-American
frontline healthcare workers languishing in the Green Card backlog held a
demonstration in front of the US Capitol urging lawmakers and the Biden
administration to end the per capita country-specific quota.

A Green
Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to
immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege
of residing permanently in the country.

Indian IT
professionals, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on the
H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system
which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the coveted
Green Card or permanent legal residency.

We are
frontline COVID warriors, and we are here to tell how we have been short
changed into a life of perpetual indentured servitude. Each of us has a story.
We are here from all over the country asking for justice. Justice that has
precluded us for decades now, Dr Raj Karnatak, an infectious disease and
critical care physician and Dr Pranav Singh, a pulmonary and critical care
physician, said.

Most of
us are from India. We trained in the US and took oath as physicians to serve
the sick and needy. Most of us are serving the rural and underserved areas. We
are in a Green Card backlog due to archaic country caps that allow no country
to get more than seven percent of employment-based green cards, said the two
Indian American doctors’ organisers of the peaceful protest said in a joint
statement.

According
to them, due to decades of backlog, many high-skilled immigrants are not able
to change jobs due to fear of losing the spot in the Green Card line and are
indentured to one employer.

Can only
work in the specialty occupation the visa is allotted for decades. Many
healthcare workers could not serve in COVID-19 hot spots as the visas are tied
to the job and employer, they said.

The small
group of protestors said that President Joe Biden can direct United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to end the Green Card backlog for
the frontline healthcare workers by utilising the unused green cards in the
past years.

There was
an HR 1044 fairness bill that was passed in the House of Representatives by 365
votes in 2019 and its senate equivalent S386 passed the Senate in 2020.

Now it is
back to House as a modified version. Representative Zoe Lofgren, initial
co-sponsor of the bill HR 1044 has not shown any interest in bringing the bill
to vote as a bipartisan solution to end the suffering of skilled professionals
including frontline healthcare workers, they alleged.

Dr
Karnatak and Dr Singh said that India is a land of more than a billion people,
but the number of green cards India gets is the same as a country as small as
Iceland.

Indian
high-skilled workers are brought into the US on an H-1B visa. There is no
country cap on the H-1B visa and due to its sheer population, Indians make 50
per cent of the H-1B workforce.

The H-1B
visa, the most sought after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant
visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty
occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology
companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from
countries like India and China.

The
discrepancy in the number of H-1B hired from India and a small number of green
cards allotted to India creates an inhumane Green Card backlog.

Green
Card backlog is adversely affecting the professional and personal lives of
high-skilled immigrants from India including the frontline healthcare workers,
they said.

Frontline
healthcare workers need immediate relief, they are suffering for a very long
time. As frontline healthcare workers who are risking their lives in this
pandemic, the least we deserve is a certainty. A certainty that if we die or
get disabled, our children and spouses won’t be kicked out of the country, said
the joint statement on behalf of the protestors.

Last
month, President Biden revoked a policy issued by his predecessor during the
pandemic that blocked many Green Card applicants from entering the US.

Reopening
the country to people seeking green cards, or legal permanent residence, Biden
in his proclamation said that the policy of former president Donald Trump does
not advance the interests of the country.

To the
contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family
members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining
their families here, he said.

The US is
currently facing a backlog of nearly 473,000 qualified family-based Green Card
requests.

As a
result of Trump’s ban on issuing green cards, as many as 120,000 family-based
preference visas were lost. But this came as a big boon for issuing
employment-based green cards, mainly those on H-1B visas.