Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall pledges to push to lift state restrictions on U.S. green card. Speaking before a large crowd of Indian-Americans, he said the current system was fundamentally unjust.
“We tell the hardest-working immigrants in the world that this line has been 70 years old,” Marshall said, according to American Marketplace. “Not because of anything you did, but because so many of you came from the same place.”
The U.S. Department of State confirmed on May 26, 2026 that all available employment-based second preference (EB-2) immigrant visas for Indian nationals for fiscal year 2026 have been exhausted. No new EB-2 green cards will be issued to Indian applicants before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1, 2026.
Quotas were set for 1990, not 2026
According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, the United States issues approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards every year. This cap was set in 1990 and has not been revised since. Among them, no one country can receive more than 7% of the funding each year. This means that India issues approximately 9,800 green cards every year, regardless of demand.
This rule applies equally to all countries. But its impact fell almost entirely on Indians.
According to WorkVisa Guide’s 2026 Green Card Backlog Report, India accounts for more than 50% of employment demand but receives the same quota as Liechtenstein, which has a population of 39,000.
this EB-2 India’s final action date for June 2026 is September 1, 2013. The Department of Homeland Security said that because the annual quota has been exhausted, embassies and consulates will not be able to issue any EB-2 immigrant visas to applicants responsible for India for the remainder of fiscal year 2026.
Why did Marshall support lifting the cap?
Marshall’s pledge revived the long-stalled legislative process. Marshall’s public intervention demonstrated growing bipartisan dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The green card backlog is the largest nationality queue in the U.S. immigration system, with an estimated 700,000 Indians caught in it, according to a 2021 analysis.
EB-2 ran out of money in May, months before the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, indicating unusually high demand this year, according to GreenCardClock research. EB-2 India has been listed as unavailable in the July 2026 Visa Bulletin; a reset is expected after October 1, but cannot be guaranteed earlier.
