Recently, news that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service will issue 280,000 employment-based immigration green cards before the end of fiscal year 2022 has flooded the circle of friends. So why is the U.S. green card quota suddenly “surplus”? Who will benefit from this green card spree in the United States? Is now a good time to immigrate to the United States?
First of all, let me correct you. The United States is not planning to suddenly issue 280,000 employment-based immigration green cards in the remaining months of fiscal year 2022. This 280,000 green card quota actually refers to the employment-based immigration green card quota in the United States for the entire fiscal year 2022. The US fiscal year 2022 is from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022. It is now the end of the 2022 fiscal year, so most of these green card quotas may have been eliminated.
But it has to be said that the quota of 280,000 employment-based immigration green cards in fiscal year 2022 is indeed more than in previous years. The employment-based immigration green card quotas for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 are 156,500 and 262,000 respectively. So why is there so many green card quotas for employment-based immigrants in fiscal year 2022?
This has to be mentioned in fiscal year 2021. Affected by the epidemic, the work efficiency of US Citizenship and Immigration Service employees has dropped significantly due to working from home, attendance restrictions and other reasons. This also coincided with an unprecedented explosion in the number of green card applications that year, resulting in a large number of immigration applications that were too late to be processed. Serious backlog. Ultimately, more than 66,000 employment-based immigration green card quotas and 140,000 family-based immigration green card quotas in fiscal year 2021 were wasted because they were too late to be issued. Therefore, the USCIS has significantly increased the employment-based immigration green card quota for fiscal year 2022.
Although the 2022 fiscal year is about to end in two and a half months, the Immigration Bureau still expressed confidence that all the 280,000 employment-based immigrant green card quotas for this fiscal year will be issued before September 30. Although the USCIS has not announced the number of green cards issued so far in fiscal year 2022, a spokesperson for the USCIS has said: As of June, the number of immigrant visas issued per week by the USCIS is twice that of the same period last year.
In order to ensure the completion of the issuance of green cards for 280,000 employment-based immigrants this year, the Immigration Bureau has adopted a series of measures including large-scale recruitment of personnel, mobilizing more departments to participate in green card review, and even waiving interviews for some immigration categories to speed up green card processing.
Although the overall employment immigration quota has skyrocketed in fiscal year 2022, the Immigration Bureau is still biased when it comes to allocation to specific employment immigration categories. At the beginning of this year, the US Immigration Service announced that immigrants should try to choose the EB-1 and EB-2 categories to apply for a US green card if conditions permit, because these two categories will be allocated a large number of green card quotas. At the same time, the USCIS also announced that some employment-based immigration categories, including EB-2 NIW, will be included in the categories that can apply for expedited processing. Therefore, the EB-1 immigration application can be approved within 15 days at the fastest, and the EB-2 NIW can be approved within 45 days at the fastest.
So who is the beneficiary of this U.S. raid on “card issuance”? Many friends are eager to try after seeing the news that the United States is "wildly selling" green cards, but I advise you to calm down. As we all know, most employment-based immigration methods in the United States have immigration waiting periods for Chinese-born applicants, and the longest waiting period even reaches 10 years. Even for non-scheduled immigration projects such as EB-1 and EB-5 reserved quota regional centers, the entire process of document preparation, application submission, and approval by the USCIS will be difficult to complete before the end of fiscal year 2022. Therefore, for friends who are preparing to apply for U.S. immigration now, it can be said that the 280,000 green cards in fiscal year 2022 have nothing to do with you. However, for immigrants who have submitted immigration applications before, the immigration waiting list may be accelerated to a certain extent in the second half of this year.
Since we can’t keep up with the 280,000 green cards this fiscal year, is now still a good opportunity to apply for U.S. immigration? Let me start with my point of view, it is still a good opportunity to apply for U.S. immigration. First of all, the immigration policy of the Biden administration is more friendly than the conservative style of the previous Trump administration. Since he came to power, various policies that are beneficial to immigration have continued. However, Biden 's first presidential term will end in 2024. Biden will also be 82 years old by then, so he will almost certainly not be re-elected. Then Trump 's Republican Party will usher in another impact on the president. Chance for the throne. The Republican Party's immigration policy itself is conservative, so it is likely to lead to slack processing of immigration applications and the retrogression of the bill.Second, fiscal year 2023 is likely to continue the policy of significantly increasing employment immigration quotas in fiscal year 2022, so new applicants will have time to catch up with the next quota explosion period. Finally, the employment-based immigration EB-1 and EB-2 categories recommended many times by the USCIS, as well as the EB-5 regional center that has been restarted this year, are excellent ways to quickly immigrate to the United States. Therefore, qualified friends must start in advance to avoid later delays. The increase in applicants has led to the reappearance or extension of the immigration waiting list.
