If you’ve been waiting for an employment-based green card, there might be unexpected good news on the horizon—though it comes with a complicated backstory.
Immigration lawyers are pointing to a silver lining in the recent travel restrictions: potentially 50,000 unused family-based green cards could become available for employment-based applicants in fiscal year 2027. Here’s what’s actually happening and why it matters for your immigration plans.
The Numbers Behind the Potential Shift
Rahul Reddy and Emily Neumann, partners at business immigration firm Reddy Neumann Brown, recently broke down the math on their company podcast. The explanation is surprisingly straightforward once you understand how the system works.
Every year, the U.S. immigration system allocates a specific number of green cards across different categories—family-based and employment-based. When family-based visas go unused in one fiscal year, federal law requires those numbers to “spill over” into employment-based categories the following year.
“If in a particular fiscal year the family quota is not used up, then that extra, the waste over green cards will be given next year to the employment-based green cards,” Reddy explained.
Why So Many Visas Might Go Unused This Year
The Trump administration expanded travel bans in December, and in January, the State Department suspended immigrant visa processing for citizens from 75 countries. That’s a massive number of people suddenly unable to complete their immigration applications.
Neumann did the homework on this. Looking at 2024 State Department data as a baseline, she calculated that these 75 banned countries accounted for approximately 67,000 green cards. But here’s where timing matters.
The ban took effect after the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 had already passed. That means visas were still being issued in October, November, and December before restrictions kicked in.
“We can assume if we’re talking about roughly 67,000 green cards and they’ve already used up one quarter’s worth… that comes up out to about 17,000 green cards that probably did get used before the ban was in place, leaving about 50,000,” Neumann said.
Those 50,000 unused visas won’t just disappear. Under current law, they’d roll over to employment-based categories starting October 1, 2026—the beginning of fiscal year 2027.
What This Actually Means for Employment-Based Applicants
For the millions of people stuck in employment-based green card backlogs—particularly from countries like India and China that face per-country limits—this could mean slightly faster movement in priority dates.
It’s not a magic solution to the decades-long wait times some applicants face, but it’s not nothing either. An additional 50,000 green cards represents a meaningful boost to the roughly 140,000 employment-based visas typically available each year.
The catch? This only happens if the travel restrictions remain in place through September 30, 2025. Any policy changes between now and then could affect these calculations.
The Bigger Picture on Legal Immigration
This potential spillover is happening against a backdrop of significantly tighter immigration policies across the board. The National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that 2.4 million fewer immigrants will receive green cards by the end of Trump’s second term compared to previous policy trajectories.
That’s not just about border security or undocumented immigration—it’s affecting people who’ve been waiting in line through legal channels, sometimes for over a decade.
President Trump made his position clear in a Thursday Truth Social post: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
What Should You Do With This Information?
If you’re an employment-based green card applicant, don’t make any major life decisions based solely on this potential spillover. Immigration law is complex, and policies can shift quickly.
However, it’s worth staying informed and keeping in touch with your immigration attorney about how these changes might affect your specific case. Priority dates could move faster than expected in 2027, which might impact decisions about job changes, travel plans, or family timing.
For family-based applicants from the affected countries, the situation is more challenging. If you’re caught in the visa processing suspension, you’ll want legal guidance on your options and whether any exceptions might apply to your case.
The Bottom Line
Immigration has always involved a lot of waiting and uncertainty, but the current policy environment has added extra layers of both. The potential reallocation of 50,000 green cards to employment categories is a direct—if unintended—consequence of restrictions on family-based immigration.
Whether this represents good news depends entirely on where you’re standing in the immigration system. For employment-based applicants, particularly those with long waits ahead, it could provide a modest acceleration. For family-based applicants from the 75 affected countries, it represents yet another obstacle in an already difficult process.
As we move through 2025, keep an eye on State Department visa bulletin updates and any policy announcements. The final numbers won’t be clear until after September 30, 2025, when fiscal year 2025 officially closes and we can see exactly how many family-based visas went unused.
Immigration might be about numbers and quotas, but behind every statistic is a real person waiting to build their life in America. That’s worth remembering as these policies continue to evolve.
