Republican Senator Roger Marshall has advocated for more Indians in the US at a time when many of his party colleagues want to permanently stop the entry of Indians on H-1B visas. Marshall said he does not support per-country limits on green cards, which would make the green card wait for Indians as long as 70 years in some cases. When the senator was addressing Indian-Americans, he showed his support for the community and said, “We are telling the world’s most hardworking immigrants that the line is 70 years long. Not because of what you did, but because so many of you came from the same place.”The wait for a green card, permanent residence in the US, is long for Indians because there is an annual limit on how many people can get a green card. No country can receive more than 7 percent of the family-sponsored and employment-based green cards issued each year. Since applications from India exceeded the allotted number throughout the year, the backlog is now almost a decade long.Based on their categories, Indians who have got a green card this year (2026) must have applied for it around 2013-14.Speaking at a Capitol Hill event organized by the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies, Marshall said the green card limit per country is one of the great injustices of the US and he will continue to raise the issue legally and sensibly. Marshall praised India, saying, “When this relationship works, both countries win. American farmers win, Indian consumers win, and the strategic balance of the 21st century tilts away from authoritarianism toward democracy.”Indian Americans are 1.5% of the US population, but they pay 5-6% of all federal income taxes, Marshall said. “Whenever anyone in Washington questions whether legal immigration works, you are the answer,” he said. “You are not the argument, you are the answer.”
Will Indians really have to wait for 70 years for a green card?
There are different types of green cards and the wait time for each is different from the others. But the 70-year wait for a person entering the queue today is a well-known claim based on estimates, as the per-country limit is neither being removed nor increased, while application numbers are increasing every year. But many people leave the queue to return to India, leaving space vacant; Some change their category and this change keeps changing the waiting time.