US Senate passes bill to clear epic Green Card backlog, Indians thrilled (Ld)

By Nikhila Natarajan New York, Dec 4 : After more than a year of intense political tangling, the US Senate has passed a bill that lifts the existing per-country cap on the number of employment based permanent-residency permits or ‘Green Cards’ issued to legal immigrants, potentially paving the way for Indians waiting in decades-long lines to breathe easier.
But there’s a catch. Several, actually. It’s the Senate vs House lawmakers versioning problem.
Aparna Bhatnagar, an Indian living in Stamford, Connecticut who’s been in the “queue forever” places the developments in context.
“This version has to reconcile with the previous version that the House passed. It’s still a long way to go and by that time the new ruling party will take over. Let’s wait and watch,” she told IANS.
The “previous version” that Bhatnagar refers to is the ‘Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act’ which passed the House of Representatives in 2019 in a 365 to 65 vote.
What passed the Senate late Wednesday night was a similar piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Mike Lee (Republican, Utah), not the exact one passed by the House.