What comes as a good news for Indians living in the United States, the country has announced to provide employment authorisation cards to some non-immigrant categories for five years. People awaiting green cards can also get these employment cards.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it was increasing the maximum validity period of Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) to five years for initial and renewal EADs for certain non-citizens who must apply for employment authorisation.
These include applicants for asylum or withholding of removal, adjustment of status under INA 245 (Immigration and Nationality Act), and suspension of deportation or cancellation of removal, the federal agency said.
It said, “Increasing the maximum EAD validity period to five years is intended to extensively reduce the number of new Forms I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, it receives for renewal EADs over the next several years, contributing to its efforts to reduce associated processing times and backlogs.”
However, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, whether the non-citizen maintains employment authorisation remains dependent on their underlying status, circumstances, and EAD filing category.
For example, if an individual received an EAD under the category based on a pending adjustment of status application for the maximum validity period of five years, and the adjustment application is then denied, their ancillary employment authorisation may be terminated before the expiration date listed on their EAD, the agency said.
A new study found that over 10.5 lakh Indians are in the queue for an employment-based Green Card and 4 lakh of them may die before they receive the much-sought-after legal document of permanent residency in the US.
A green card is a Permanent Resident Card, a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently. The per-country caps are numerical limits on the issuance of green cards to individuals from certain countries.
The employment-based green card backlog reached a new record of 1.8 million cases this year, according to the study by David J Bier of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank.
About 1.1 million of them are from India (63%). Another nearly 250,000 are from China (14%), it said.
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