All you need to know about EAGLE Act and how it will benefit Indians

The Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act, 2021 needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the president to sign it into a law.

A bipartisan legislation was re-introduced in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday to eliminate the per country cap on employment-based green card.

The EAGLE Act has been introduced in the US House of Representatives by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.(Bloomberg Photo)

The legislation was introduced by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Congressman John Curtis and it is likely to benefit Indian IT professionals anguishing over decades of green card wait.

It is called the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act, 2021. The legislation needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the president to sign it into a law.

Here's how it will benefit Indian IT professionals:

• The bill proposes to phase out the seven per cent per-country limit on employment-based immigrant visas.
• The bill also seeks to raise the seven per cent per-country limit on family-sponsored visas to 15 per cent.
• Explaining the logic behind introducing the bill, Lofgren said that due to the cap, a person from a large-population country with extraordinary qualifications who could contribute greatly to US economy and create jobs waits behind a person with lesser qualifications from a smaller country.
• “It makes no sense. Because of this, we are now seeing recruiters from outside America luring those with the highest skills away from the US. That hurts our economy," she further said.
• The basic framework for allocating immigrant visas dates back to the middle of the 20th century and was last seriously updated in 1990, when the Congress established the worldwide numerical limits on visas and the seven per cent per-country cap that still exists today, the poltician said.
• Over time, these limitations have led to backlogs.
• The EAGLE Act's predecessor, the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, was passed in the House in the 116th Congress with a resounding bipartisan vote of 365 to 65.