Nearly One Million Indians Face Massive US Green Card Backlog

A comprehensive study by the National Foundation for American Policy shows that nearly one million Indian professionals and their families are caught in the employment-based US green card backlog. Indians make up approximately 79 percent of all applicants waiting across the primary employment preference categories. The analysis warns that a professional entering the queue in 2026 could face a potential wait of up to 179 years for permanent residency in the advanced degree category.

The bottleneck heavily affects the EB-2 category for advanced degree holders, where more than 731,000 Indians are currently waiting. In comparison, applicants in the EB-3 skilled worker category face an estimated wait of 38 years, while priority EB-1 applicants face a wait of four to five years. Mandatory labor certification processes also add an initial delay of two to three years before applicants can even join the immigrant visa queue.

The severe delay stems from statutory rules set by US immigration law, which caps worldwide employment-based green cards at 140,000 annually and limits approvals for any single country to no more than 7 percent. Because highly populated nations with large numbers of skilled workers receive the exact same country quota as much smaller nations, the demand far exceeds available visas each year.

Unless the US Congress passes legislative reforms to increase visa limits or remove the per-country ceiling, hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals in the technology and healthcare sectors risk spending their entire careers on temporary work visas without ever obtaining permanent residency.