Chronic Green Card Backlog Gains Lawmakers’ Bipartisan Attention

Immigrants in line for a green card for years or decades have new hope that chronic backlogs will finally be addressed as lawmakers from both parties and the Biden administration train their sights on the issue.

Paperwork processing delays—which have hit immigration programs across the board—mean longer wait times for applicants to secure permanent resident status. The expiration of as many as 80,000 unused green cards for fiscal 2021 at the end of September added to frustrations for long-waiting applicants from India and China hoping to make the U.S. their permanent home.

Multiple legislative proposals would make expired green cards ...