From May to August, the US embassy in New Delhi and the consulates in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad prioritised the processing of student visa applications to ensure that the students were able to reach their programmes of study in time.

The US has issued 82,000 visas to Indian students in 2022 so far — the highest compared to previous years. This was also the highest number of visas issued to any country globally, the US embassy in India said.

From May to August, the US embassy in New Delhi and the consulates in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad prioritised the processing of student visa applications to ensure that the students are able to reach their programmes of study in time.

“We are happy to see so many students were able to receive visas and reach their universities after the delays caused in previous years by the COVID-19 pandemic,” PTI quoted Patricia Lacina, Charge d’affaires of US embassy in India, as saying.

Nearly 20 percent of all international students studying in the US are Indians. According to an ‘Open Doors’ report in 2021, there were about 1.7 lakh students from India in the 2020-2021 academic year, PTI reported. This shows that the US is still the most sought-after country for higher education for Indian students, the senior-most US diplomat in India said.

The embassy said those who wish to seek assistance to study in the US will have to download the EducationUSA India app, which is available for free on iOS and Android devices. Students will have access to the latest information about the college application process at the tip of their fingers. This is also a quick and easy first step to planning higher education in the US, the embassy said.

Earlier, the UK had said Indians received the largest share of student visas in a year, overtaking China. In the year ending June 2022, a total of 4,86,868 sponsored study visas were issued by the UK, of which Indian nationals accounted for 1,17,965. This was 89 percent higher than the previous year. Chinese nationals were issued 1,15,056 study visas, Indian Express reported.

While the US gets most international students from China, Indians this year (till July) got about twice the number of students visas as the Chinese, showed an analysis of non-immigrant visas issued by the US State Department.

A total of 77,799 Indian students received F-1 visas from January to July this year, while in China, 46,145 got the visa, the report said.

The F-1 visa is issued to those who wish to study at a US university or college, high school, private elementary school, or, other academic institutions. The US also issues M-1 visas for international students, who wish to study at vocational or other recognised non-academic institutions, other than language training programmes. This report by IE has only taken F-1 visas into account.

Even though the number of Chinese students going to the US for higher studies has declined since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, China still accounts for highest number of international students studying in America. This is followed by India and South Korea at the second and third places, respectively, the IE report said.

In 2021, 99,431 Chinese students got F-1 visas, while from India, 87,258 got the visa and from South Korea, 16,865. This number for the year 2020 was at 4,853 for China and 21,908 for India, The Indian Express report stated. The figures were significantly hit in 2020 due to Covid-prompted lockdowns in different nations and China’s severe movement restrictions on its citizens.

The US economy benefits greatly from international students, as in 2019, before the pandemic, foreign citizens studying in America contributed $44 billion to the nation’s economy. Out of this, $16 billion came from Chinese students and nearly $8 billion from Indians, the report said.

After the US, the UK attracts a lot of foreign students, and the nation too witnessed a sharp increase in Indian students getting education visas against their Chinese counterparts.

In the July 2021-June 2022 period, the UK issued 486,868 sponsored study visas, out of which, 117,965 accounted for Indian students — an 89 per cent rise from the previous year, reported IE. Meanwhile, a total of 115,056 study visas were granted to Chinese students.

Compared to 2019, Indians students saw a 21 per cent increase in study visas from the UK, while for China, the number dipped by 4 per cent, the report stated.

Tens of thousands of Indians, sometimes in a year more than a hundred thousand, apply for green cards to live their American dream in the US. But, as the number of green cards to be issued is capped around 7 percent against applications for each country in the US, a vast majority of Indian applicants have no choice but to wait for their turn.

In view of a large number of Indian applicants for green card, the wait is likely to remain long, with 369,322 applicants having approved employment visa petitions awaiting visa availability, according to recent data from the US immigration agency.

Almost all of these are applicants under the EB2 and EB3 (for professionals and skilled workers) categories, used by technology companies to sponsor visas for immigrant workers. The green card, or permanent residence, option is available on these visas.
“This only tells you how many people are waiting for their visa numbers to get a green card. They have not provided the number of family members that are attached to these principal applicants, and this is important because visas granted to family members are also counted towards the per-country maximum allowed each year. So, we are looking at several decades of wait time,” said Poorvi Chothani, managing partner at LawQuest, a global immigration law firm, in a business daily ET’s report.

These applicants have an approved Form 1-140 which is the first step towards an employment-based green card. “After an I-140 is approved, employment-based applicants who are Indian-born usually have to wait several years for their priority dates to become current. After the dates become current, the final step of the green card, the issuance of the immigrant visa, can further take several years because of the USCIS processing delays,” said Rajiv S Khanna, managing partner at immigration. com.

Indians filed the highest number of I-140 petitions in the first two quarters of fiscal 2022 (October 2021-March 2022), in line with the trends over the last several years, as per data released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The agency received 37,719 applications in the six-month period. In the same period, 25,274 applications were approved, including some filed earlier. This doesn’t mean that they have been issued green cards.

H-1B and L-1 visa holders can only live and work in the US for a limited number of years. Therefore, most of them apply for permanent resident status, within a few years of arriving in the United States.

Close to 9.46 lakh Indians have renounced Indian citizenship in seven years since 2015. Last year saw the highest at 1.63 lakh, an analysis of answers placed by the Ministry of Home Affairs in Parliament in the last two years stated.

The number of Indians who relinquished Indian Citizenship in 2019 and 2020 are 1,44,017; 85,256, respectively. In 2021, almost half of 1.63 lakh — 78,284 Indians who relinquished Indian Citizenship, received citizenship in the USA, followed by 23,533 who took citizenship in Australia; 21,597 in Canada; and 14,637 in the UK.

The details were revealed as Rai replied to a query of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Haji Fazlur Rehman who asked whether the Minister of Home Affairs will be pleased to state the details and the number of persons who have renounced Indian citizenship till the current year since 2019.

In 2020, the US was the biggest attraction, followed by Canada (17,093) and Australia (13,518). Between 2019 and 2021, Indians have chosen 103 countries to take citizenship. Individuals renounced citizenship for reasons personal to them, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said.

Forty-one Indian nationals in Pakistan also gave up their Indian citizenship last year, compared to only seven in 2020.

Around 326 Indians renounced their citizenship while being in the UAE last year. They applied for citizenship in countries such as Albania, France, Malta, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Grenada, Jordon, Mauritius, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, among others.

Overall, 9,32,276 Indians renounced their citizenships in favour of other countries between 2015 and 2021, according to the government statistics shared with Parliament in February last year and Tuesday.

At the same time, the data shared by the MHA in November 2021 stated 10,645 foreign nationals applied for Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2020, with maximum 7,782 from Pakistan and 795 Afghan nationals.

Of these, 4,177 persons were granted Indian citizenship by the government. 452 “stateless” persons also applied for Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2020, according to the home ministry. Still, it is not known how many were given Indian citizenship and which territory they applied for the citizenship from.

The MHA said last year that 1,33,83,718 Indian nationals living in foreign countries. A law brought in by the government in 2019 to grant Indian citizenship to the six persecuted minorities – Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi, and Christian – from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, is yet to be implemented for lack of rules.

An Indian American judge in California has ended EB-5 Regional Centers’ “deauthorized” status by approved Behring Regional Center’s request for a preliminary injunction against the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

In what is considered a major victory for the EB-5 sector, the decision of judge Vince Chhabria of the US district court for the Northern District of California exempts all EB-5 regional centers from being affected by how USCIS interprets the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022.

The act had given a fresh lease of life to EB-5 Regional Center program, which had lapsed on June 30, 2021, giving foreigners a chance to get permanent residence in the US through the investment route.

Part of an omnibus spending measure for FY 2022, it also increased the minimum investment criteria to $800,000 for targeted investment regions and $1,050,000 for conventional investments.

However, as part of the Act, all previously designated EB-5 Regional Centers under the original program would need to “re-designate” or get a new registration under the new law.

Behring Regional Center sued the Department of Homeland Security on April 22, 2022 requesting an injunction to prevent the requirement for redesignation. Later another lawsuit was filed by a group of five regional centers.

These lawsuit challenged the unilateral deauthorization by USCIS of the over 600 designated regional centers existing at the time that the RIA was enacted into law.

The lawsuits pointed out that the agency’s guidance violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and misinterprets the new EB-5 law enacted by Congress.

Over the years, the EB-5 program has become very popular among high-net worth individuals based in India and Indian nationals holding H-1B visas as it offers a comparatively quicker route to a green card.

Nearly 90% of investments are routed via regional centres, rather than under the direct route – as the latter requires investors to carry on their own business and hire American workers.

“USCIS is preliminarily enjoined from treating as deauthorized the previously designated regional centers based on its almost certainly erroneous interpretation of the Integrity Act,” said Invest in the USA (IIUSA), a trade association for the EB-5 Regional Center Program commenting on the court ruling.

“Of course, the agency may do whatever is reasonably necessary to ensure that existing regional centers comply with the Integrity Act, but those centers must presently be permitted to operate within the regime of the Act,” it said.