US Green Card Crunch Deepens for Indians
EB-1 could become unavailable within weeks while EB-2 remains closed and EB-3 India stays stuck at 2014
By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – The US State Department on Thursday announced that India’s EB-3 final-action date remains January 1, 2014, compared with September 2024 for most countries, underscored the extraordinary wait confronting Indian employment-based applicants.
Indians waiting for employment-based green cards face another setback, with the US warned that visas in the coveted EB-1 category could become unavailable within weeks if the country’s allocation is exhausted before the fiscal year closes.
The warning came at an especially difficult point for Indian applicants.
The EB-2 category is already unavailable for September, while the final-action date for EB-3 India remains January 1, 2014 leaving that queue more than 12 years behind the calendar.
In September Visa Bulletin, the US State Department said demand and use of EB-1 immigrant visa numbers by applicants chargeable to India could push the category to its limit before September 30.
“High demand and number use by aliens chargeable to India in the EB-1 visa category may necessitate making the category unavailable in the coming weeks if India’s pro-rated limit in the EB-1 category is reached before the fiscal year ends,” the State Department said.
“This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly,” it added.
EB-1 is the first-preference employment-based immigration category. It covers priority workers, including people with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers.
India’s EB-1 final-action date stands at October 15, 2022. An Indian applicant generally needs a priority date than the cutoff for an immigrant visa number to be available for final action, subject to other eligibility requirements.
If the category becomes unavailable, however, visa numbers would no longer be authorized for issuance to applicants chargeable to India for the period concerned.
The possibility of EB-1 reaching that point is significant because pressure is already visible across India’s other major employment-based queues.
India’s EB-2 category covering professionals with advanced degrees and people of exceptional ability — is marked “U” in the September Visa Bulletin.
“U” means visa numbers are not authorized for issuance in that category during the period. EB-2 India was already unavailable in August and has not reopened for September.
Its final-action date for India is January 1, 2014.
The gap with other countries is striking. For most countries not separately listed, the EB-3 cutoff is September 1, 2024. Mainland China’s date is January 1, 2022, while the Philippines stand at August 1, 2023.
India’s unreserved EB-5 investor category is also unavailable for final action in September.
The position is different for EB-5 set-aside categories covering rural projects, high-unemployment areas, and infrastructure. Those remain current for all countries.
Dates for filing provide some additional room for Indian applicants.
The September chart lists December 1, 2023, for EB-1 India and January 15, 2015, for both EB-2 and EB-3.
The dates should not be confused with final-action dates.
Applicants seeking adjustment of status within the US must also check which Visa Bulletin chart US Citizenship and Immigration Services authorizes for use for that particular month.
The squeeze reflects a collision between strong demand and statutory limits on employment-based immigrant visas.
The fiscal 2026, the worldwide employment-based preference limit is 186,317, according to the State Department.
US immigration law also generally applies a 7% per-country ceiling across family- and employment-based preference visas, though carryover provisions can affect the final numbers available.
Indians, those constraints have produced markedly different queues even within employment-based immigration: EB-1 is now at risk of becoming unavailable, EB-2 has already reached that point, and EB-3 remains anchored to a priority date from more than a decade ago.
The State Department has left open the possibility of another restriction before September 30 with less than a month remaining in the US fiscal year, media reported.
