Share

On August 17th 2007, as the shutters came down on the 31-day window for employment based green card applications, Citizenship and Immigration Services had received a staggering 300,000 applications.

The federal agency had thrown the gates open for all EB categories to fill up and annual limit of 140,000 employment visas. On an average, CIS was receiving around 54,700 applications monthly and feared that the annual quota would not be used up. The result was almost three times the annual limit of applications.

However, accepting of applications doesn’t mean that immigrants would receive their green cards quickly. The annual limit is still fixed and the agency will now be dealing in huge backlogs possibly leading to 5 – 6 years of wait for these applicants. The silver lining is that once their applications are officially received, these applicants will have more job mobility and their spouses can apply for work authorization too.