When we talk about immigration, we usually talk about specific kinds of like illegal immigrants or immigrants who come here to do high skill jobs like software engineers. Taking a step back and understanding the whole picture might help. Seeing all the types of immigration together would help you understand where some of the immigration arguments might fit into the whole system. So we’ll try to answer two questions:

1. What are the different types of immigration? 

AND

2. How many immigrants come here in each category?

Immigrants who come to the US with their family

First, let’s talk about the different types of immigrants. Someone who is married or engaged to a US citizen is eligible to come to the US. You can also come if you’re in the immediate family of a US citizen, like a parent or sibling or child.

There’s also a special category for orphans adopted by Americans. When a Citizens family members are coming to the U.S., there’s no limit to how many husbands, wives, children under 21 or parents that can immigrate. But if a citizen wants to bring their adult children, their grandchildren or their brothers and sisters to the U.S. there is a limit every year, so it’s first come first serve. If you’ve committed a serious crime, stayed past your allowed visit or haven’t been vaccinated, you’re also ineligible to come to the US. The state dept can also keep you out if they decide that you’re a security risk or if you’ll probably need welfare.

Immigrants who come to the US to work

The next big category aside from family is people coming here to work. First, a business has to apply to be able to hire an immigrant and then offer a specific person a job before that person can even start the process:

The first group is people who have extraordinary abilities in science, art, education, business or Athletics. we’re talking National or International reputation, like Nobel Prize winners, National Soccer champions, and that sort of thing. These people also don’t need to have a job offer before they come, unlike everybody else. Another part of this group is professors and scientific researchers coming to take jobs at colleges and universities or managers and executives at multi-international companies transferring to a U.S. office.

The second group is people with advanced degrees like Ph.D.’s, MBA’s, MD’s and so on, experts in their fields and people with bachelor’s degrees and several years of experience.

The third group is unskilled, skilled and professional workers. This means people whose jobs take less than 2 years of experience or training, people who need more than two years and people need a college degree to do their jobs.

The fourth group includes a bunch of small special groups like broadcasters, Ministers, former US government employees, Iraqis and Afghans who’ve worked with the US military and some graduates from foreign medical schools.

The fifth group is people who’ve invested at least $1,000,000 or $500,000 into businesses in America in high unemployment/rural areas. The business has to create at least 10 jobs for American workers within two years and it doesn’t count any jobs created for the investor’s family. Each group gets a percentage of the total amount of visas given out every year for immigrants coming to work. Being a more selective group makes it way easier to get in, so start winning pie-eating contest future Americans.

There’s also a limit to how many people can come from a particular country every year on top of the category limits. So you might be within the limits of your category. However, if people from your country are 7% of the people who immigrated to the United States that year, no one else from your country can come.

Refugees coming to America

The next kind of immigrant is a refugee. This is someone who flees from their country from fear of being persecuted for their race, nationality, religion, political views or being part of a particular social group. There’s a limit to how many refugees can come and also a limit to how many can come from a particular part of the world. One big change that President Trump signed is an executive order, which stops all refugees for 120 days and doesn’t allow refugees from Syria at all. They are allowed back after 120 days, which is about 4 months. Refugees will be cut from 110,000 to 50,000 yearly. 

Finally, there is a special lottery for immigrants. Every year 50,000 Visa applicants are selected from different countries. This sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the last 5 years. The fewer immigrants your country has sent, the more likely it is that you’ll win. To qualify, someone must have at least a high school education and at least 2 years of experience in the last 5 years. They must have also been working at a job that required 2 years of training or experience. President Trump’s order also stopped all immigration from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for at least 30 days, while the government adds more screening in betting procedures.

Statistics on immigrants in America

Now for some numbers. All the numbers! In 2015, over 1 million immigrants moved to the U.S. Most of them came, because they had families that were already here, especially immediate family. The largest category of those were husbands and wives reuniting. The second-largest category was people coming to work and then the third was refugees. In 2014, about 80 million children were living with immigrant parents. That number has gone up about 34% since the year 2000. This puts them in a category of about 1/4 of all the people in the U.S. under the age of 18. 

Illegal immigrants in America

The number of illegal or undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is about 11 million. This is 3% of the U.S. population of 324 million. This counts people who cross the border, but also people who come here legally and stay past the end of their visa. Some methods are easier than others. Most illegal immigrants are from Mexico with almost 6 million; after all, it’s hard to get here from other places if you’re poor. But the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico has been going down since 2009. With more people coming instead from places like Central America, Asia, and Africa. 

Studies estimate that 8 million are working out of that 11 million total, which means that’s about 5% of the total workforce. The total number of immigrants in the United States is about 43 million. This is out of the U.S. population of 324 million. That’s about 13 and a half percent. There are also a little over 1 million permanent legal residents in the U.S. who aren’t citizens. Most of them are from Asia or North America, meaning Mexico or one of the Caribbean countries. 

Visitors in the US

So that’s permanent immigrants, but What about visitors. There is also a long list of reasons to visit the US:

• An athlete coming for a professional competition.
• An au-pair or nanny.
• Certain Australian professionals
• Business visitors 
• Foreign soldiers stationed here.
• Foreign diplomats or employees of a foreign organization that have an office here. 
• Someone on an educational or cultural exchange. 
• Visiting for medical treatment.
• Serving on the crew of a visiting ship or airplane.
• A journalist, doctor or religious worker. 
• Seasonal laborers.
• Tourists.
• Families of people with green cards.
• Someone brought to the United States because they were victims of a crime or human trafficking.

Certain professionals can also come here temporarily from Mexico or Canada or another country if they have specialized knowledge. In 2014, about 181 billion people visited the US at some point. Most of them are business Travelers or Tourists or maybe a little bit of both. About three and a half million temporary workers came to America; some with their families. There also were 2 million students that came; some were studying more practical fields than others.

Conclusion

Some big things to remember about the immigration system is that there are way more visitors and immigrants than we thought. That most immigrants come to America, because of their family that’s already here. That it’s easier to work here the more education you have. That there are limits on how many people can come from each country. Also, how many refugees come from different parts of the world. But now you have an idea of all the different kinds of immigration and there you have it.

For information about the immigration services we offer, visit our website, call us at (610)-351-0889 or visit our immigration office at 1028 Hamilton St in Allentown PA. We will be happy to assist you with any of your questions regarding immigration.