Why is China and India the exception here? They keep getting mentioned as an exception in this discussion.

A single country of origin is not allowed to use up more than 7% of the total green card quota. Thus, very populous countries with lots of qualified potential immigrants, and strong incentives to immigrate (e.g. significant quality-of-life difference), are at a disadvantage.

China and India are heavily backlogged due to high demand

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bul...

> If you have a path to a green card then 5 years is a pretty solid amount of time for most places (not india/china).

Agreed. However, since you can't self-petition in most cases, it is unclear if you have a path or not.