Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that it has received approximately 300,000 applications employment-based green cards, since July 1.  According to official figures from CIS, in the three months before the July cutoff, the agency had received an average of 54,700 applications a month for all green cards.  The New York Times reports that applications were already surging then as foreigners sought to file papers before higher processing fees took effect on July 30.  

The shift from the CIS curtailing applications in July to accepting a surge in applications was a relief for thousands of high-skilled immigrants seeking green cards after working in the U.S. on temporary visas.  Once their applications have been officially received, they will have more job mobility and will allow their spouses to apply for work authorization.  However, the surge will vastly increase backlogs.  Most new applicants will face waits as long as five years before they are approved.  "The root of the problem is the arcane and ridiculous limit on visas for skilled immigrants whom the United States wants," said Murtuza Bahrainwala, 38, an Indian doctor in Decatur , Ill. , who applied last month.  

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Guatemalan officials have began raids on Antigua-area adoption centers, placing the nation, which last year alone sent 4,000 babies to U.S. homes, at odds with Americans hoping to adopt a child from the South American Country.  The Associated Press reports that Guatemalan government has taken custody of their countries’ adoption centers based on claims that a number of U.S. applicant’s paperwork didn’t meet legal standards. Parents and adoption directors instead have cited political motivation after the U.S. had pressured the country to clean up a multimillion dollar industry that involves the theft and sale of orphans.  

Days after last week’s raid, U.S. parents have flooded the U.S. Embassy with desperate calls and complained that the temporary caretakers hired by the Guatemalan government were failing to provide the babies with proper food, medical care, and clean conditions within the orphanage.  The government has denied the allegations.  

The U.S. has pushed hard in recent years for a crackdown in an industry that has placed more than 25,000 Guatemalan children in U.S. homes since 1990, so many that every 100^th baby born in Guatemala grows up as an adopted American.