Washington: The US Democratic party presidential nominee Joe Biden in his campaign on Saturday said that, if voted power in the November General Elections, his administration will reform the H-1B visa system and work towards eliminating the country quota for Green Cards. Joe Biden campaign is in a move to attract the influential Indian-American community.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China. Joe Biden campaign released in a major policy documents for Indian-Americans on the occasion of India’s 74^th Independence Day. And it also emphasized its support to family-based immigration system and streamlining processing for religious worker visas.

The Joe Biden campaign said that the administration will also take steps to stem the rising tide of hate and bigotry, address the security needs of house of worship, eliminate language barriers and honour the diversity and contributions of Indian-Americans. This is for the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate has come out with an exclusive policy document for Indian-Americans. There are 1.3 million eligible Indian-American voters across eight battleground states. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is scheduled to address the Indian-American community in a video message later in the day.

Joe Biden’s campaign said, he will support family-based immigration and preserve family unification as a core principle of our immigration system, which includes reducing the family visa backlog, his campaign said. “He will increase the number of visas offered for permanent, work-based immigration based on macroeconomic conditions and exempt from any cap recent graduates of PhD programmes in STEM fields.”

“And, he will support first reforming the temporary visa system for high-skill, specialty jobs to protect wages and workers, then expanding the number of visas offered and eliminating the limits on employment-based Green Cards by country, which have kept so many Indian families in waiting for too long,” it said.

According to the policy document, Biden will restore and defend the naturalization process for Green Card holders. A Green Card allows a non-US citizen to live and work permanently in America. The campaign said, “Joe Biden will increase the number of refugees we welcome into this country by setting the annual global refugee admissions target to 125,000 and seek to raise it over time to commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need.”

“He will also work with Congress to establish a minimum admissions number of 95,000 refugees annually. Biden will remove the uncertainty for Dreamers by reinstating the DACA programme and explore all legal options to protect their families from inhumane separation,” the campaign said. It said Biden will end workplace raids and protect other sensitive locations from immigration enforcement actions.

“Biden will rescind Trump’s Muslim ban on day one and reverse the detrimental asylum policies that are causing chaos and a humanitarian crisis at our border,” the campaign said. Indian-Americans of all backgrounds – Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Jain, and others – have been subjected to bullying and xenophobic attacks and need now, more than ever, a reassurance that the US leaders in Washington will have their backs, it said.

“Biden will appoint leaders at the Department of Justice who will prioritise the prosecution of hate crimes, and he will order his Justice Department to focus additional resources to combat hate crimes – including religion-based hate crimes – and to confront white nationalist terrorism,” it said.