Washiington DC: For Indian professionals hoping to settle permanently in the United States, the green card wait could now extend far beyond a normal working lifetime.
A new analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy estimates that an Indian applicant entering the employment-based immigration queue in 2026 could face a potential wait of 179 years for permanent residency under the EB-2 category.
The estimate is a stark illustration of how the US employment-based green card system has created an exceptionally long queue for Indian nationals.
Nearly 1 million Indians (996,599) professionals and their dependents, are currently waiting for employment-based green cards across the EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 categories, according to NFAP.
The projected wait varies sharply depending on the category. An Indian professional entering the queue in January 2026 or later could potentially wait about five years for an EB-1 green card, 38 years for EB-3 and 179 years for EB-2, NFAP said in its August policy brief.
EB-1 is designed for individuals with extraordinary ability in areas such as science, business, arts and sports. EB-2 covers professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability, while EB-3 includes professionals with bachelor’s degrees as well as skilled and other workers.
The US generally makes around 140,000 employment-based green cards available each year. But immigration rules also impose a per-country limit, generally restricting any one nationality to no more than 7% of the annual employment-based total.
That restriction has had an outsized effect on Indians because of the enormous number of Indian professionals seeking permanent residency through employment.
The disparity is also visible when India is compared with China. NFAP estimates that Chinese applicants entering the system would face a potential wait of about 25 years in EB-2 and seven years in EB-3. Their projected EB-1 wait is broadly similar to that of Indian applicants.
The problem, however, is not new.
NFAP’s analysis shows that the Indian employment-based queue was already expanding rapidly a decade ago. In fiscal year 2016, USCIS approved 47,601 EB-2 applications filed by Indians. Once family members were included, NFAP estimated that those applications represented about 98,594 people.
But just 4,407 Indians received permanent residency through EB-2 that year.
The resulting gap meant that more than 90,000 people could have been added to the backlog in FY 2016 alone, according to NFAP calculations. The foundation said comparable developments occurred in 2017 and 2018.
The backlog also continued to grow despite an unusual boost in the number of employment-based green cards available during the pandemic.
COVID-19-related closures at US consulates meant that some family-sponsored visa numbers went unused. Under U.S. immigration law, those unused numbers were subsequently made available to employment-based applicants, resulting in roughly 280,000 additional green cards between fiscal years 2020 and 2024.
Yet the extra numbers did not eliminate the queue. NFAP said the employment-based backlog actually expanded by 20.6% over those five years.
The lengthy delays have implications beyond immigration paperwork. For US companies competing for highly skilled workers, the uncertainty surrounding permanent residency can make it harder to recruit and retain Indian talent, NFAP said.
For Indian professionals already building careers in the US, meanwhile, the numbers point to a system in which obtaining permanent residency can depend as much on the size of the nationality-based queue as on their qualifications or employment.
