Kamala Harris promises to lift caps for green cards as part of Presidential campaign

The United States Senator Kamala Harris has promised to lift the existing per-country caps for employment-based green cards and eliminate discriminatory backlogs to protect immigrant workers so they can stay in the country and contribute to the economy. Her presidential campaign further asserted that the 95 per cent in line for legal permanent residency is primarily from Asia from countries including China, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam. She also claimed to push overdue reforms to visa programs to streamline the immigrant labour force and to stimulate entrepreneurship. 

According to her presidential campaign, “Her Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, for example, would lift existing per-country caps for employment-based green cards and also raise per-country caps for family-sponsored green cards from 7 percent to 15 percent”.

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Harris reaches out to APIA community

On November 12 she reached out to over 24 million Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States and collectively called the Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA). Harris believes that the needs and concerns of the APIA community are just as diverse as the community itself. Needs including affordable health care, housing, and reducing gun violence, to climate change and immigration are mostly overlooked by the public policy discussions. Therefore, as a member of the APIA community, she says that she understands the unique and wide-ranging concerns faced by the diverse community. 

According to her presidential campaign, Harris will also reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme and expand DACA by eliminating the requirement that DREAMers apply before they turn 31-years-old, raising the age at the time of entry from 15-years-old and under to 17-years-old and under. 

“She'll protect the parents of US citizens and legal permanent residents from the prospect of deportation by expanding the deferred action programme. She'll also extend deferred action eligibility to other law-abiding immigrants with ties to our communities," it said.

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(With PTI inputs)