WASHINGTON: The magic of 'Gandhigiri' has worked for Indian green card seekers with the US immigration department today announcing that it will accept applications from foreign professionals seeking permanent residency through an expedited process, reversing its earlier decision.

Inspired by Bollywood movie 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', angry immigrant applicants had started a campaign to flood the Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) headquarters here with flowers after an abrupt withdrawal of a measure that promised expedited processing of their request for green card.

"The public reaction to the July 2 announcement made it clear that the federal government's management of this process needs further review," said Emilio Gonzalez, USCIS Director. The USCIS said it will immediately start accepting employment-based applications to adjust status (Form I-485) filed by aliens whose priority dates are current under the July Visa Bulletin, No. 107. USCIS will accept applications filed not later than August 17.

On July 2, USCIS announced that it would not accept any additional employment-based applications for this fiscal year. Taking a cue from the movie which extols the Gandhian way of peaceful protest or 'Gandhigiri', a coinage, the green card had launched the novel way of protest from July 11.