Some South Asians Mourn, Others Rejoice Over Demise of Immigration Bill

She has spent the last two years in Toronto, waiting for her paperwork to process.

A legal permanent resident of the U.S., Babu has never lived with his wife because she's trapped in a five to six-year visa backlog for spouses of green card holders, who are, under the current family immigration system, not classified as high-priority "immediate relatives."

South Asian American immigration advocates were never supportive of the Senate bill, which would have created an earned legalization program for the 12 million people living illegally in the U.S. and doubled the number of H-1B specialized skills visas offered each year.

Skilled Indian workers seeking employment-based green cards were worried about provisions in the bill that would have slashed the employment-based green cards from 140,000 to 90,000 a year, and would have awarded them on a merit-based point system. A point system that, some activists say, would have favored undocumented agricultural workers over doctors and other advanced degree holders.

Indian American family immigration advocates chafed at provisions in the Senate bill that would have altogether eliminated several key family-based immigration categories: siblings of U.S. citizens, adult children of U.S. citizens, and adult children of green card holders.

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