The immigration queue crisis to the United States reveals a huge disparity in waiting times between applicants according to country of birth and type of visa . While the theoretical waiting time for some Indians applying for permanent residency through work may reach 175 years or more, applicants from Arab countries face long queues, especially in some categories of family immigration, although they are very far from the record levels recorded for India.
Hot Topics
India’s long waiting list estimates are based on the massive backlog in labor-based immigration categories, particularly EB-2, where the influx of large numbers of Indian professionals, coupled with numerical restrictions on immigration from each country, has created a queue that may exceed the age of the applicant himself.
India Waiting period can exceed the applicant's lifespan
According to an analysis by the National Policy Foundation (NFAP), an Indian citizen applying for permanent residency under the EB-2 category could, at current accumulation rates, face a theoretical waiting period of approximately 175 years or more.
This does not mean that the US authorities are giving an official date after 175 years, but rather the number represents a mathematical estimate of what it might take to clear the backlog if current rules and rates of issuing residence permits continue in a similar manner.
The crisis stems from the fact that US law imposes an annual cap on work-based immigration, along with a de facto limit on immigration from a single country. With the number of Indian applicants far exceeding the available quota, applications accumulate year after year.
NFAP data indicates that Indians make up the largest portion of the backlog in the three main occupational migration categories, making India the most severe case in the labor-based migration system.
Arab countries: Shorter queues, but they could stretch for decades.
Applicants from Arab countries do not face the same situation. Most Arab countries are listed in the US visa bulletin under the category of “All Other Eligibility Areas,” which includes countries that do not currently have separate waiting lists due to applications exceeding quotas, while there are separate schedules for India, China, Mexico and the Philippines.
Therefore, the Arab applicant in many labor-based immigration categories does not face the enormous backlog that the Indian applicant faces.
But the picture is different when it comes to family immigration, where waiting periods can last for many years.
Brothers and sisters of the Americans... the oldest Arab queue reaches 2011
The longest waiting lists for most Arab countries appear in category F4, which is for adult siblings of American citizens.
In September 2026, the final action date for this category for most countries was October 22, 2011.
This means that applications that entered the queue after that date are still waiting their turn, while this cannot be considered a fixed date for obtaining the visa for new applications, because the queue movement may accelerate, slow down or decline.
In other words, someone who begins family immigration proceedings through a brother or sister who is a U.S. citizen today may be entering a process that takes many years and possibly more than a decade.
Married children... a wait exceeding a decade
In the F3 category, which pertains to the married children of American citizens, the final procedure date for most countries, including Arab countries, was October 22, 2014.
As for category F2B, which is for unmarried children aged 21 or over of permanent residents, the deadline is August 22, 2019.
In the F1 category, for unmarried adult children of US citizens, the date was January 22, 2020.
Thus, the nature of the family relationship can make a big difference in the waiting time, even for people from the same Arab country.
Not all Arabs are in the same queue
There is no separate waiting list for each Arab country in most immigration categories.
The Egyptian, the Jordanian, the Lebanese, the Iraqi, the Syrian, and the Yemeni, for example, are subject in most cases to the same general group history, and each country does not have an independent history as is the case for India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines.
This means that the country of birth does not create huge differences in the Arab world like those that exist between India and the rest of the world in labor-based migration.
But the type of visa, the number of applications, and the date the application was submitted are all factors that determine a person's position in the queue.
Arab workers are in a much better situation than Indian workers.
In employment-based migration, the EB-1 category was available tomost Arab countries in September 2026, as was the EB-2 category.
As for the EB-3 category, the final action date for most countries was September 1, 2024, while the date for the other workers category within EB-3 reached April 1, 2022.
In contrast, India was facing much stricter restrictions, particularly in EB-2 and EB-3, as a result of the exceptional volume of backlogged applications.
This explains why the 175-year figure cannot be applied to Arab immigrants; the figure reflects an exceptional case related to Indian accumulation, and is not a general average for all immigrants to the United States.
Why have the queues become so long?
Much of the crisis stems from immigration laws that place numerical limits on visas, even though the demand for professional and family immigration has exceeded the numbers permitted by law in some categories.
In employment-based migration, the basic ceiling is around 140,000 visas per year, and this number includes qualified workers and their family members.
With continued high demand, particularly from India, unfulfilled orders accumulate year after year.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that the system simply does not allow for the issuance of an unlimited number of visas to countries with the largest number of applicants, making the size of the Indian demand much larger than the annual capacity to clear the queue.
175 years... a number that reveals a wider problem
Although the figure of 175 years seems unrealistic for the life of any applicant, it is used to illustrate the extent of the imbalance between the size of the demand and the available quota in some immigration categories.
For India, the problem is not just a delay in processing files, but a structural backlog that requires a change in the law or a significant increase in the number of visas available in order to substantially reduce the queues.
As for immigrants from Arab countries, the problem is less severe in professional migration, but it can be severe in family migration, where dates of more than a decade appear in some categories.
Between 175 years for India and more than a decade in some categories of family immigration to Arab countries, the queues for US visas reveal a system that makes an immigrant's wait linked not only to his qualifications or family relationship, but also to the category he is applying through, his country of birth, and the volume of accumulated demand in front of him.
Tags:
america
