Is the American dream over for 1.5 million Indian immigrants waiting for Green Cards? The current immigration discourse has surely left many anxious about their future. With the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program getting sunset over period of 6 months, immigration reform has become priority for the US Congress. As debate on the best solution forward heats up, an estimated 1.5 million Indians, stuck in decades long backlogs are feeling left out. They work in United States legally on a temporary specialty visa status, paying all taxes, abide by all the rules, and are significant investors in the American economy. The Hoover study found 58% of the backlogged applicants have held advanced degree and mean annual wage of $82,000. Many of them, with other legal immigrants from all over the world, have went about founding more than half of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion that roughly employed one in 10 American workers or founding roughly 40% of Fortune 500 companies; or filing 50% of US patents every year fueling innovation. Without high skilled immigration, there would be no Google, Apple, Uber, WhatsApp, AppDynamics or a host of other companies that are powerful drivers of US economy.

A lot of criticism has been levelled on Indian immigrants being responsible for low wages and job losses of American workers. But new research by economists at the University of California, San Diego, and Dartmouth College shows that on average, hiring legal immigrants cost employers more than American workers in the long run, so they are not source of cheap labor and do not undercut US workers. The labor market is global which means if the U.S. based highly skilled immigrants are not hired in the United States, then they will be hired overseas either by U.S. companies or their competitors. When the highly skilled immigrants are hired outside the United States, they take their education with them as well as the related jobs and capital investment that follows them. It also stops them from contributing to US economy.

Under current immigration system only 5-7% of 1 million green cards issued annually go to the primary applicants based on merit, skill and proficiency. Over 90% of numbers go to family reunion including extended ones, diversity lottery and refugees. Though US takes in more permanent immigrants than any other OECD nations, it ranks 14th behind countries like Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Spain, Belgium in the percentage of the immigrant inflows based on employability and entrepreneurship. Strangely even dependents (spouses and children) also get counted in the overall 140,000 Employment based annual quota. Also, there is country cap of 7% on the annual quota, which results in much longer waits for individuals from countries with large populations like India and China. Historically Indians have accounted for 50% of employment based applications for immigrant visas, but because of country caps only a fraction of applicants get the permanent residence each year. As a result, the queue grows exponentially and the wait times have gone past 70 years which is insane considering working lifespan of healthy human being is 30-40 years.

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The hardships that Indian immigrants in backlogs face are not limited to lost career and business opportunities, but also unable to travel freely to native country for important life events due to visa revalidation hassles. Also in spite of living in the United States legally for over a decade or more, if they lose their job when corporations/companies that hire them, outsource jobs or close their operations, they have to leave United States with a very short grace period of 60 days. This puts tremendous stress on families as their children (many of whom are US born citizens) must leave the country during middle of the school year with their parents. The families leave having to sell their house, car, and all their belongings in a fire-sale.

As Indian immigrants wait decades for getting Permanent Residency, kids that are born outside US are worse affected by problems related to “aging out”. They were brought to United States legally, as dependents, at a very young age and they grew up in the United States, attended American elementary, middle and high schools, lived thoroughly American lives and in many cases, have no memory of any other country. Under America’s dysfunctional immigration system, many thousands of young legal immigrants are forced to leave as they turn adults losing dependent status, even though they followed the rules. As Congress debates on bringing DREAM act to legalize the provisions of DACA, it has neglected its major flaw in that it includes only those young immigrants who are here illegally, excluding children of immigrants who came to the United States and stayed legally!

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Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue have introduced RAISE act for legal immigration reform. The act proposes to cut legal immigration by half by eliminating current categories for extended family. It does not change the number of employment based visas, removes country caps and brings points based system similar to Canada and Australia. The act however leaves the 1.5 million employment based applicants stuck in backlogs stranded as they have to restart their application and have to compete among themselves and new applicants for 140,000 slots. These applicants have already lived in the United States legally and, in addition to contributing to the economy by paying all local/federal taxes, 401K, and social security, they have also made several positive contributions to the competitiveness and inclusiveness of the United States. Since points are awarded by age and none based on years of stay in US, the applicants transitioning from old system to new, start with reduced points. Since old system gets replaced no further extension of stay is possible for these stranded applicants. Also, the queue in new system refreshes every six months, so if you don’t get immigrant visa and your temporary specialty visa expires, and you have to leave the country. An estimated 1.5 million Indian immigrants will be forced to leave US in next 3-6 years if the bill becomes law. Their removal would constitute a budgetary loss of 127$ billion and a GDP loss of 512$ billion as per Hoover study.  

For generations, people around the world have seen United States as, as Ronald Reagan once put it in his farewell speech from Oval office, “a shining city upon a hill.” It was a place where dreams come true, one that rewarded hard work and initiative, and a country where immigrants had ability to give themselves and their children a better life and greater opportunity. Current generation of Indian immigrants will not have pioneers or entrepreneurs of the past like Indra Nooyi or Satya Nadella or Sabeer Bhatia or Sundar Pichai as uncertainty is antidote to innovation and career progression. These entrepreneurial immigrants are now relegated to a temporary status, creating a class of society who will live like indentured servants, and be never be able to enjoy the basic dignity of being able to build their own destiny. Indeed, a case can be made they now become a part of a lost generation. The legal immigration system has not changed in past 25 years, as a result it is no longer in synch with needs of changing times. Now the U.S. economy and families are beginning to suffer the consequences of broken immigration system, too. It is a golden opportunity for US Congress to end this unique American nightmare!

References:

https://data.oecd.org/migration/permanent-immigrant-inflows.htm

https://wdp.wharton.upenn.edu/book/the-immigrant-exodus/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2016/08/20/7-facts-you-didnt-know-about-high-skilled-immigrants/#762023f5218c

https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigrants-will-have-wait

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/ombudsman-liaison/practical-immigration-consequences-foreign-workers-slowing-economy

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22623

https://www.cato.org/blog/congress-should-help-young-legal-immigrant-dreamers-too

https://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-s-malone-the-self-inflicted-u-s-brain-drain-1413414239

http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013/05/Estimating-the-Economic-and-Budgetary-Effects-of-H-1B-Reform-In-S.744.pdf