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US Congress contemplates additional green cards for skilled workers

Businessweek today reports that the US Congress is contemplating a possible legislation that would provide additional green cards for skilled workers.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, who serves as the chairman of the House subcommittee on immigration, confirmed that there are informal discussions going on among congressmen regarding the increase in yearly green card allocations by at least 100,000.

Recent revelations that the US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has not been able to issue all of the alloted visas for the past years because it lacked the resources to process all of the applications have prompted congressmen to initiate the discussions.

The USCIS recently admitted that 10,000 of the 140,000 green cards that were allocated last year were never given out. Without new legislation, these visas can not be issued anymore. Over the last 10 years, it is estimated that as many as 170,000 green cards have been unused.

The current discussions in Congress are focused on possibly recapturing these unused visas.

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