Washington, October 18, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
US Congressman Josh Gottheimer has renewed his call to abolish per-country limits on employment-based green cards, as the latest US visa bulletin shows that Indian professionals with advanced degrees are still reaching application dates from November 2013.
“Imagine waiting 179 years for a green card. That’s the projected wait for Indian green card applicants,” the New Jersey Democrat said in a post on X.
“I voted to end the per-country caps to expedite the process, because we can enforce our laws and still live up to our immigrant values as Americans,” he added.
The 179-year estimate comes from an August analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a research organisation based in Arlington, Virginia.
According to NFAP, an Indian national filing an application in January 2026 or later could face a potential wait of 179 years in the EB-2 category, which covers professionals with advanced degrees, and 38 years in the EB-3 category. The estimates do not include government processing time.
NFAP estimated that Indian nationals accounted for 79 per cent, or approximately 996,599 people, of the 1,264,495 applicants waiting in the first three employment-based preference categories as of December 2025.
The organisation based its estimates on US Citizenship and Immigration Services data on approved principal applicants, adding its own estimates for spouses and children included in those applications.
An earlier analysis by David Bier of the Cato Institute estimated that Indian nationals accounted for approximately 1.1 million, or 63 per cent, of a backlog of 1.8 million cases across all employment-based categories in 2023. Bier estimated that new Indian applicants could face a 134-year wait in the combined EB-2 and EB-3 categories.
The US State Department’s October 2026 Visa Bulletin, the first of fiscal year 2027, lists November 1, 2013, as the final action date for Indian EB-2 applicants. For most other countries, the corresponding cut-off date is January 1, 2025.
For Indian applicants in the EB-3 category, the final action date is January 1, 2014, compared with May 15, 2024, for most other countries.
The September 2026 bulletin, the final bulletin of fiscal year 2026, had listed the EB-2 category for India as “Unavailable” (U), meaning no visa numbers were authorised for that category at the time. The November bulletin had not yet been published as of the report.
Under Section 202 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the per-country limit for preference immigrants is set at 7 per cent of the combined annual limits for family-sponsored and employment-based immigration.
For fiscal year 2027, the per-country limit works out to 25,620, according to the visa bulletin, while the worldwide employment-based immigration level is set at “at least 140,000”.
Gottheimer was among the 365 members of the US House of Representatives who voted in favour of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act in July 2019, according to the House Clerk’s roll-call record.
The legislation, which sought to eliminate per-country limits for employment-based green cards, passed the House by 365 votes to 65 but did not become law.
FOLLOW NOW
