US President Biden reforms on Day 1 cheer Indian Diaspora |
Joseph R Biden Junior Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America on 20th January in an event that would normally have been attended by more than a million, but was tempered by a respiratory infection that has prevented Americans, and the world, from gathering for big celebrations. In lieu of an inaugural ball, Biden and Harris held a virtual celebration. Addressing Americans for the first time as President, Mr. Biden delivered a message of unity and hope while laying out the enormous challenges faced by the country from a raging pandemic, deep political divisions and frayed race relations. On his first day in office, Biden sent a bill to Congress to restore humanity and American values to the US immigration system. The bill provides hardworking people who enrich communities every day and who have lived here for years, in some cases for decades, an opportunity to earn citizenship. While the bill is not yet public, the release captures its provisions — which would gladden the hearts of the Indian diaspora, be it H-1B employees, the 741 thousand Indians stuck in the employment-based green card backlog, nearly hundred thousand spouses of H-1B workers who feared that the employment authorization program would be rescinded and even the nearly 200 thousand students from India. The biggest beneficiaries of the Bill are likely to be those caught up in the huge employment-based green card backlog. Annually, the US sets aside only 140 thousand green cards for employment-based applicants with a 7% per-country cap. Given the heavy influx of Indians in the US, the majority of them holding an H-1B visa, this restrictive policy posed challenges and created a huge backlog.
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