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Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall has pledged to push for eliminating country-based limits on US green cards. Speaking before a large gathering of Indian Americans, he called the current system fundamentally unjust.
“We are telling the world’s hardest-working immigrants that the line is 70 years long. Not because of what you did, but because too many of you came from the same place,” Marshall said, according to The American Bazaar.
The US Department of State confirmed on May 26, 2026, that all available Employment-Based Second Preference (EB-2) immigrant visas for Indian nationals in FY2026 have been exhausted. No new EB-2 green cards can be issued to Indian applicants until October 1, 2026, when the new fiscal year begins.
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Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the US issues approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards each year. This ceiling was set in the year 1990 and has not been revised since. Of these, no single country may receive more than 7 per cent annually. That translates to roughly 9,800 green cards per year for India, regardless of demand.
The rule applies equally to all countries. But its effect falls almost entirely on Indians.
According to WorkVisa Guide’s 2026 Green Card Backlog Report, India accounts for over 50 per cent of employment-based demand, yet receives the same allocation as Liechtenstein, a country of 39,000 people.
The EB-2 India Final Action Date in June 2026 stood at September 1, 2013. DHS stated that, since the annual allotment had been exhausted, embassies and consulates would not be able to grant any EB-2 immigrant visas to applicants chargeable to India for the balance of FY 2026.
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Marshall’s pledge revives a long-stalled legislative push. Marshall’s public intervention signals growing bipartisan discomfort with the status quo.
The green card backlog is the biggest nationality-based queue in the U.S. immigration system, with an estimated 700,000 Indians already ensnared in it, according to a 2021 analysis.
According to GreenCardClock’s study, the EB-2 exhaustion, which arrived in May, months before the fiscal year-end on September 30, indicates exceptionally high demand this year. EB-2 India is already listed as unavailable in the July 2026 Visa Bulletin; a reset is anticipated after October 1, but there is no assurance of advancement.
Shirin Gupta is a content producer with the Hindustan Times. She covers everything between politics, entertainment and sports at the US desk. Shirin got interested in political journalism during her time as a web editor at her college newspaper NCC News in Syracuse when she first started seeing the effects of national politics in life of her fellow colleagues. Shirin has worked on a wide range of fast-moving and developing stories locally when she was at NCC editing accessible reports for the audience. Her current role requires her to track real-time updates, verify information and present balanced coverage across diverse beats. Covering US politics from an international newsroom perspective has further deepened her understanding of how domestic decisions can have far-reaching global consequences. With a keen interest in international affairs, Shirin continues to build her expertise in geopolitics, policy shifts, and cross-border developments. She aims to learn and evolve her reporting in matters of geopolitics and international issues. Outside the newsroom Shirin writes about books and music for her personal blog. She is an avid consumer of pop culture and reveres literature.
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