An estimated 800,000 immigrants working legally in the US are awaiting a green card — an unprecedented backlog in this employment-based immigration — and the majority of these are Indian nationals, according to a report by The Washington Post.

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The backlog among Indian particularly is so high that an Indian national who applies for a green card now might wait up to 50 years to get one, said the report. Why? Because the annual quota of green cards has remained unchanged since 1990, said the report.

A green card is the final step in the American legal immigration process before a person become a US citizen and that country’s government doles out about 1 million a year. The most common green card involves a family member as sponsor.

In the employment category, nearly 75 percent of the backlog is Indian. This, said the report Indians have migrated in hordes to the US since the 1990s driven by the tech boom.

The silver lining for the Indians in the list is that they are on specialist H1-B visas, which are perpetually renewable and therefore making it possible to wait, said the report.

Yet, Indians who are collecting their green cards today have been waiting at least 10 years compared with Chinese who have been waiting for four, said the report.