Go-to visa for Indian and Chinese temporarily frozen

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A popular visa that offers a path to U.S. citizenship is temporarily closed to Chinese and Indian nationals.

The pause in the visa program, which took effect August 1, is yet another crack in the outdated immigration system and evidence that there’s need for more transparency, according to immigration lawyers.

At issue is the EB-1 visa. In July, the State Department announced that it would stop processing EB-1 applications from China and India until October.

The EB-1 visa is available to three categories of candidates, those with extraordinary abilities in arts, science and business; researchers and professors; and multinational business executives and managers.

Eb-1 visas are limited to 40,135 for this fiscal year, and no more than 7% can go to immigrants from any one country.

China and India, whose workers are in high demand, have hit their limit. The last time this happened was in 2007.

The limit resets when the government’s fiscal year begins on October 1. But lawyers say they fear applicants from China and India will hit the ceiling again and that will hurt the U.S.

“This is how we welcome extraordinary and outstanding artists, scientists and businesses — and it’s pretty pathetic,” said immigration lawyer David Leopold.

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