U.S. Plans to Process Every Employment-Based Green Card This Year

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The U.S. government is confident it will process all employment-based green cards by the end of this fiscal year, avoiding a repeat of last year when it let thousands of green cards go to waste.

Typically, about 140,000 employment-based green cards are given to foreign employees and their families a year. This number represents only a fraction of the demand, which leaves many applicants in a decades-long wait.

But the Covid-19 pandemic created a loophole where any unused green cards in the family-based visa category became part of the employment-based category the following year. This meant that nearly double the amount of employment green cards became available.

In 2021, USCIS had 120,000 additional employment green cards available, but because of
unending backlogs and severe understaffing at the agency, only 68,000 of those were processed. Typically, unused green cards are discarded at the end of each fiscal year.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou vowed not to waste any employment-based green cards this year.

“We know so many people have been waiting and so many people have been nervous about another loss-of-visa situation, and those are real people,” she said in an interview.

If you have an approved employment-based I-140 and your priority date is current, you may be eligible to adjust status this year. Please contact us for more information.