Process all Green Cards within 6 Months, Presidential Panel Recommends

Washington DC: A US presidential advisory commission has unanimously voted to recommend President Joe Biden process all applications for green cards or permanent residency within six months.

To be sent to the White House now for approval, recommendations of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (PACAANHPI), if adopted, is likely to bring cheers to tens of thousands of Indian-Americans and those waiting, some for even for decades, for a Green Card.

A proposal in this regard was moved by eminent Indian-American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria during the meeting of the PACAANHPI, during which all its 25 commissioners unanimously approved it.

To reduce, the pending green card backlog, the advisory committee recommended US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) review their processes, systems, and policies and establish new internal cycle time goals by streamlining processes, removing redundant steps if any, automating any manual approvals, improving their internal dashboards and reporting system and enhancing policies.

The recommendations aim to reduce the cycle time for processing all forms related to family-based green card applications, DACA renewals, and all other green card applications within six months and issue adjudicate decisions within six months of the application received by it.

The commission recommended National Visa Center (NVC) State Department facility hire additional officers to increase their capacity to process green card applications interviews by 100 percent in three months from August 2022 and to increase Green card applications visa interviews and adjudicate decisions by 150 percent – up from capacity of 32,439 in April 2022 – by April 2023. “Thereafter Green Card visa interviews and visa processing timeline should be a maximum of six months,” it said.

Only 65,452 family preference green cards were issued in fiscal 2021 out of the annual 226,000 available green cards.

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