U.S State Department Schedules Thousands More Green Card Interviews; Backlog of Applications Increases

A monthly report published by the National Visa Center (NVC) — an U.S State Department facility that processes visa applications — reveals that a backlog of green card applications waiting to be scheduled for an interview have risen by 10.7% from April to the August.

The number of backlog applications waiting to be scheduled has been 513,887 in August, albeit the number of monthly scheduled green card interviews increased by 75%, from 18,979 in April to 33,306 in August.

Waiting period has also increased since March 2020 due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

Earlier, PTI had reported that about one lakh employment-based green cards are at the risk of being wasted in less than two months.

It caused big resentment among Indian IT professionals whose wait for legal permanent residency now runs into decades, the report said.

According to the PTI, this year’s quota for employment-based immigrants is 261,500, far higher than the usual 140,000.