U.S. Immingration Policy

The United States Immigration system works in a very complex and confusing way. It is governed by The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA). There is an annual worldwide limit of 675,000 permanent immigrants. The President and Congress determine a separate number for refugees. Immigration to the United States is based upon the following principles: reuniting families, allowing people in with skills that are helpful to the United States economy, to promote diversity, and in protecting refugees.

            Family-based immigration allows for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to bring certain family members over to the United States. 480,000 family based visas available every year. There is no limited number of visas available for immediate family members, but there are certain requirements that must be met. Immediate family members consist of spouses of U.S. citizens, unmarried children of U.S. citizens under the age of 21, and parents of U.S. citizens (must be at least 21 years old to petition for a parent). There is a family preference system that allows for a certain amount of visas each year. These include adult children and brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens and spouses and unmarried children of lawful permanent residents. In order to balance the overall number of preference family-based visas, Congress developed a complicated system to determine amount given each year.

            Employment-based visas are provided in both a temporary and permanent basis.. There are more than twenty types of visa for temporary nonimmigrant workers.  There are L visas for intracompany transfers, P visas for athletes and performers, R visas for religious workers, A visas for diplomatic employees, O visas for workers of extraordinary ability, and H visas for both highly skilled and lesser skilled workers Many of these categories have a numerical limit to them as well. Permanent employment-based visas are limited to 140.000 a year.

Refugees and Asylees fall under different requirements for being allowed into the Unites States. A refugee is someone fleeing their home country or unable to return to it because of persecution or life-threatening or extreme conditions. There is a limit to how many refugees the United States will take on. This number went down quite drastically immediately following September 11, 2001. The limit, has over time, been steadily increasing. In 2013, the president set the cap to 70,000. This is then further broken down by regions. For example, Africa has a limit of 12,000, East Asia is 17,000, Europe and Central Asia is 2,000, Latin America/Caribbean is 5,000, Near East/South Asia is 31,000, and then there is an unallocated reserve at 3,000.

The Immigration Act of 1990 created the Diversity Lottery which randomly allocates 55,000 visas a year to nations with a low rate of immigration to the United States.