EB-3 Green Card Blocked: Indians Face Longest Wait as EW Categories Full for 2025

Indian nationals seeking permanent residency through the EB-3 employment-based category are facing some of the longest wait times in history, as both the EB-3 and EW (Other Workers) visa categories became fully subscribed for fiscal year 2025. This means that no new green cards can be issued in these categories for Indian-born applicants until the next fiscal year begins. The root cause lies in the per-country cap system embedded in U.S. immigration law, which limits any single country to no more than 7% of total employment-based green cards issued annually. Since India produces a disproportionately large number of employment-based applicants — particularly in the skilled worker categories — the backlog for Indian nationals stretches decades into the future. For EB-3 applicants from India, this development means that even those who filed their I-485 adjustment of status applications years ago may see no movement on their cases while the annual quota remains exhausted. The EW (unskilled or other workers) subcategory under EB-3 is similarly affected, compounding the hardship for a broader range of applicants. This situation underscores the urgent need for congressional reform of the per-country cap system. Legislation such as the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act has been proposed in prior sessions to eliminate these country-based limits, but has not yet been enacted into law. EB-3 applicants from countries other than India and China are comparatively less affected and may still see visa number availability in the coming months.