The White house has announced that the immigration framework of the US President Donald Trump will end the green card backlog of high-skilled workers by ending the diversity lottery visa. The announcement comes amid the growing demand by the Indian H-1B visa holders for the removal of allotment as per the country-limit.
In a fact sheet titled ‘ending the economic harm caused by our immigration system’, the White House said, “President Trump’s framework would end the visa lottery programme and reallocate some of the visas to help reduce backlog of high-skilled, employment-based immigrant cases.”
Trump called for ending the visa lottery system later in the evening nad tweeted:
“Time to end the visa lottery. Congress must secure the immigration system and protect Americans.”
Most Indian-Americans are highly skilled and enter the country on H-1B work visas. They were the most sufferers due to the the current immigration system with a cap on green card allotments or permanent legal residency per country. The current wait period can be as long as 70 years for Indian skilled immigrants for green card.
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Raj Shah, White House Deputy Press Secretary, told reporters during his first ever White House press conference that, “I think the president wants to see legal immigration reform. He wants to see us move from a process that currently exists in law of extended family chain migration toward merit-based immigration reforms,”
“We want to look at the educational backgrounds, ability to contribute to the workforce in a way that helps American workers. So the president wants to see reforms that improve America’s economy,” Shah added.
As per the Senate Republican Policy Committee, an average of 50,000 green cards are alloted through lottery for people across countries who do not enter US through the merit-based employment visas.
