Permanently moving to the U.S. legally was once as easy as getting on a ship or strolling across a border.
Today, most lawful means of entering the country take years because of overwhelmed immigration agencies, rising levels of global migration and a limit on the number of certain visas, all of which have culminated in a massive backlog of people trying to get to the U.S.
Around 9 million people are awaiting green cards, and those wait times have skyrocketed from just a few months to years, possibly decades, according to the Cato Institute and other researchers. In 1991, only 3% of preference immigrants, or those seeking visas through family members already in the U.S., had to wait more than 10 years. By 2018, 27% of applicants experienced that wait time.
The U.S. hasn’t increased the number of certain visas it grants each year since 1990, when President George H.W. Bush signed an immigration bill that set quotas based on the country’s population and labor and economic needs at the time. Since then, parts of Africa, Central America, the Caribbean and the Middle East have seen economic and political turmoil, forcing millions to flee to the U.S. and Europe.
Agencies have become overwhelmed. The U.S. immigration system has a backlog of more than one million cases.
The system for applying to enter the U.S. is also convoluted and difficult to navigate, advocates say. There are three major categories for visas: family-based; employment-based and diversity, although the government only allows 50,000 visas for the latter — and millions of people apply each year.
There are also routes that allow people to temporarily live and and work in the U.S.
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