80,000 green cards for residency in America are about to be lost... What are the repercussions of this?

A Washington Post editorial warned Wednesday that the validity of 80,000 green cards for those seeking permanent work residency in the United States could expire in less than 10 days, and that the government should not let that happen.

About 1.2 million immigrants awaiting permanent permission to live and work in America got what seemed like good news at the start of this fiscal year, when USCIS itself found it had issued 120,000 green business cards, up from the 140,000 that It is usually issued.

She pointed out that the agency was able to bypass some of this backlog and clear more of these visas than in any previous year, but the slow handling caused by the financial and logistical problems related to the Corona virus has now led to the bleak prospect that instead of handing them over to a segment of these motivated workers, Most of them are Indian tech industry employees, the green cards will simply disappear unless the administration or Congress act quickly.

The newspaper described the setback of the green card as a wound caused by the government itself, which it can also treat.

She explained that the Immigration Act of 1990 attempted to keep legally issued green cards unused, but the executive branch chose to accomplish them in a way that almost always resulted in the expiration of employment-based green cards.

The newspaper believes that there is a solution to save these permits, which is to allow the renewal of work-based green cards, according to the same rules as “H-1 B visas” (which allow employers to hire foreign workers in specialized professions), as it is still Those visas that are ready to use in a given year can be counted retroactively, even if they are not processed in a timely manner.

And US President Joe Biden could announce this change in time to prevent the obsolescence of 2021, by assigning every remaining field to the current applicant.

And if officials can't do it unilaterally, then the White House should ask Congress for some help. Lawmakers have more power to revive green cards, as they did in 2000 and 2005.

The newspaper concluded its editorial that many immigration issues are politically and morally precarious, yet there is no excuse for leaving the green cards that the government has already agreed to provide, which are for people who have already approved their eligibility, until they disappear without a trace.