Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall has pledged to push for eliminating country-based limits on US green cards.
Speaking before a large gathering of Indian Americans, he called the current system fundamentally unjust.
The US Department of State confirmed on May 26, 2026, that all available Employment-Based Second Preference (EB-2) immigrant visas for Indian nationals in FY2026 have been exhausted.
No new EB-2 green cards can be issued to Indian applicants until October 1, 2026, when the new fiscal year begins.
The US issues approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards each year, with a ceiling set in 1990 and not revised since.
India accounts for over 50 per cent of employment-based demand, yet receives the same allocation as Liechtenstein, a country of 39,000 people.
Marshall's pledge revives a long-stalled legislative push, signaling growing bipartisan discomfort with the status quo.
The green card backlog is the biggest nationality-based queue in the U.S. immigration system, with an estimated 700,000 Indians already ensnared in it.
