US lawmakers will vote on Tuesday on lifting the seven per cent country-cap on issuing the Green Card, a move that could benefit thousands of highly-skilled Indian IT professionals in the queue for decades.

A Green Card allows a person to live and work permanently in the US.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the bill on the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from seven per cent of the total number of visas available that year to 15 per cent and eliminates the seven per cent cap for employment-based immigrant visas.

Indian IT professionals are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on H-1B work visas and the current immigration system face a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of the coveted card or permanent legal residency.

Being supported by more than 310 lawmakers from both the Republican and the Democratic Party, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act is all set to sail through the 435-member US House of Representatives.

Buoyed by the fact of 203 Democrats and 108 Republicans are co-sponsoring the bill, the proponents of the legislation are using a fast-track process which requires 290 votes to pass a bill without hearing and amendments.

Lifting the per-country cap would mainly benefit professionals from countries such as India for whom the wait for Green Card is more than a decade.

The Library of Congress said the act, also known as HR 1044, is the most viewed bill in the week beginning July 7.

It also removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China.

The bill also establishes transition rules for employment-based visas from 2020-22 by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas.

'Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85 per cent shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country,' the CRS said.

The bill, however, has to be passed by the Senate, wherein the Republicans enjoy a majority, before it can be signed into law by the US President.

A similar bill being supported by a bipartisan group of senators is slated to come up for consideration soon. The identical bills in the Senate and the House were introduced in February.

In the House, it was introduced by Congressman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who represents portions of Northern California's Silicon Valley, and Republican Ken Buck from Colorado, while in the Senate it was introduced by Harris and Mike Lee from Utah.