US House votes to end country caps for work visas

In a move that would benefit highly-skilled workers from countries like India seeking to stay in the US, the House of Representatives has voted to end per-country caps on worker-based immigration visas.

The bill (HR 3012) passed by the US House of Representative in a voice vote completely eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas and raises the per-country cap from seven per cent to 15 per cent for family-based visas, all without adding even a single additional visa.

The current Immigration and Nationality Act generally provides that the total number of employment-based immigrant visas made available to natives of any single foreign country in a year cannot exceed seven per cent of the total number of such visas made available in that year, a result of which a large number of qualifies Indians in particular are rejected because of this anomaly in the existing law.

Supporters of this bill termed it as pro-growth and pro-job.

Speaking on the floor of the House in support of the bill, Congressman Steve Cohen said the bill removes the so-called "per-country" limits from applying to employment-based green cards.

"Current immigration law provides 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants. The law, however, prevents any one country from receiving more than 7 per cent, or 9,800, of the total 140,000 visas," he said.

"Because of this per-country limit, a country like India, with a population of 1.2 billion, is limited to the same number of visas as a country like Iceland, with a population of 300,000 and a lot of ice," he argued.