Minneapolis engineer Haifeng Xiao scrambled this month to prepare an application for a green card, which would grant her permanent residency in the United States a decade after arriving from China.
But she found out this week that it might be another two years before she can apply.
Skilled professionals such as Xiao caught in employment-based green card backlogs got two surprises in recent weeks. The government announced in early September that some immigrants who had waited for years would be able to file their applications in October, in keeping with a 2014 initiative by President Obama to address long waits. But last Friday, the government revised its timeline, pushing back application dates by as long as five years for some immigrants.
"We were so excited, and to have the rug pulled out from under us two weeks later is just flabbergasting," said Mark Schneider, the University of Minnesota's associate director of employment-based visas.
Earlier this week, Xiao and other applicants sued the government over the reversal. The Minnesota chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association reached out to U.S. Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar to protest the change.
This year, after input from some of the state's largest employers, Klobuchar sponsored a bipartisan bill that would boost the availability of green cards for foreign professionals; supporters say they help fill worker shortages in high-tech and other fields.
But the proposal met with stiff opposition in Congress amid charges some employers bypass American workers in favor of cheaper, more pliable foreign-born labor. Moves to bring in employees on work visas following recent layoffs at Disney and other companies have given critics fresh ammunition.
Backlogs since mid-2000s
Since the mid-2000s, applicants have faced long backlogs for the annual quota of 140,000 employment-based green cards, which put immigrants on a path to citizenship. The waits can stretch to a decade or longer for those from India, China and the Philippines because of per-country quotas. While they wait, immigrants cannot switch jobs or accept certain promotions; international travel is a hassle.