A group of Indian-American frontline healthcare workers, who are stuck in the Green Card backlog, held a protest in front of the US Capitol urging lawmakers and the Biden administration to end the per capita country-specific quota.

A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants headed to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently in the country.

Indian IT professionals, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on the H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the Green Card.

“We are frontline Covid warriors, and we are here to tell how we have been short changed into a life of perpetual indentured servitude. Each of us has a story. We are here from all over the country asking for justice. Justice that has precluded us for decades now,” Dr Raj Karnatak, an infectious disease and critical care physician and Dr Pranav Singh, a pulmonary and critical care physician, said.

“Most of us are from India. We trained in the US and took oath as physicians to serve the sick and needy.

“Most of us are serving the rural and underserved areas. We are in a Green Card backlog due to archaic country caps that allow no country to get more than seven percent of employment-based green cards,” said the two Indian American doctors, who organised the peaceful protest, said in a joint statement.