Workers feeling cheated by green-card reversal

A surprise government announcement that there were plenty of employer-sponsored green cards available raised Mehul Kapadia's hopes that his wait for permanent residency was finally over.

But then, a sudden announcement that no new green cards will be issued for highly skilled workers until fall has Kapadia wondering if he'll ever find stability in America.

The State Department announced last month that employment visa numbers were available for all people seeking employer-sponsored green cards, except unskilled workers.

Applicants often wait years for those numbers. Kapadia, an Ogden software engineer originally from India, says he's been in line since Dec. 16, 2003.

For now, he's a legal worker with a temporary visa. So, when he saw he could apply for the green card number, Kapadia underwent the required medical exam and submitted his documentation July 2, the first day it could be submitted.

Then, that same day, the State Department issued an update stating that "sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services during the past month have resulted in the use of almost 60,000 employment numbers." The department called the backlog reduction an "unexpected action" and said employment visa numbers would be available again Oct. 1.

CIS had been working since May to reduce a backlog in applications it already has on file, said Bill Wright, spokesman for the agency.

"There's a numerical limitation of roughly 147,000 visas available (annually)," he said. "Once we met that numerical limitation, we requested that the State Department post a brand new, revised bulletin that anything after that is no longer eligible."

The State Department had originally posted the bulletin to ensure that all available visas for the fiscal year would be issued, said Steve Royster, State Department spokesman for consular affairs. Last year, he said, roughly 10,000 such visas weren't issued.

"Processing visas on file with CIS is going to benefit all the applicants in the pool, and this will ensure the entire allotment of visas for 2007 will be used," he said.

But Kapadia now says he feels cheated by two federal agencies that said one thing one day and another the next.

"Nobody knows what happened," he said. "This was kind of a big rejection and sense of being let down, but for what? We still can't comprehend why they acted in this extraordinary manner."

Kapadia isn't alone. Tens of thousands of people who work in the United States under employment visas and their families were affected by the change, said Crystal Williams, associate director for programs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.