WEBVTT - How Easy Is It to Immigrate to the U.S.? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.319 Lauren Vogel bam here. If you watch cable news these days, 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.639 you may have heard a lot of impassioned debate about 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.760 a phenomenon that some call family reunification and others call 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.119 chain migration either way, in which immigrants who settle in 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.960 the United States then sponsor family members to enter the 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.360 country and join them. President Donald J. Trump said in 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.720 his State of the Union address, under the current broken system, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.960 a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.559 distant relatives. To fix that perceived problem, Trump favors passage 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.120 of the Rays Act, a piece of legislation that, if enacted, 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.400 would reduce the ability of Americans to sponsor extended family 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.840 and adult family members, and would impose a skills based 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.920 point system for deciding who gets to enter the United States. 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.800 As a result, the Act would cut legal immigration to 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.080 the United States by a projected fort in its first 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.400 year alone. From the tenor of the discussion, you might 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.720 think that it's pretty easy to obtain a so called 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.800 green card, the permit that enables a foreign national to 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.679 live and work in the US permanently, provided that you've 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.000 got relatives here already. But how easy is it really. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.760 Let's take the example of a naturalized citizen from say, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.400 the Philippines, who's been trying to bring a brother sister 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.160 here to live. According to the U S. Department of 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.600 State's latest visible in currently covering, such a sibling is 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.640 now eligible for processing via family reunification if they filed 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:39.280 immigration paperwork before February one. Yep. That means the projected 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.840 weight time for a brother or sister who applies today 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.280 would be more than twenty three years. Other categories of 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.000 family members from various countries face similarly long waits. A 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:51.960 sibling from Mexico faces a projected weight of slightly more 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.800 than twenty years, while one from India probably will have 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.080 to sit tight for about fourteen. And those projections aren't 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.200 set in stone the way. It could get shorter or 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.840 longer depending on other factors. We spoke with Joshua Brasblatt, 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.880 an attorney and senior policy analyst at the American Immigration Council, 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.600 which is a Washington, d c. Based organization that supports immigration. 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.080 He said, people think you just apply, you get in line, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.680 and you come. It's much more complicated than that. With 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:23.080 all the categories and the limits. US immigration regulations tend 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.239 towards the inscrutable, in part because it essentially has multiple systems, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.840 one that's family based, another based on employment, and separate 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.000 routes for refugees and those seeking asylum. That American Immigration 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.240 Council has a nine page document to explain it. There 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.600 are numerical limits on categories of immigrants and countries as well, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.480 but let's focus for a moment on family based and 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.799 employment based immigration, which Breezeblitz says are the two main 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.600 categories accounting for most of the people who enter the 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.679 US legally and become permanent residents. So stick with me here. 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.560 There are four categories of family based immigration. F one 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.399 is unmarried sons and daughter is over age twenty one 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.320 of U. S. Citizens. F two is separated into A 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.280 and B. A is spouses and children of permanent residents. 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.639 B is unmarried sons and daughters over age twenty one 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.160 of permanent residents. F three is married sons and daughters 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.960 of U. S citizens, and F four is brothers and 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.120 sisters of adult U. S. Citizens. The family based portion 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.080 of the system has a theoretical ceiling of four hundred 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.920 and eighty thousand immigrants allowed into the country each year, 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.400 though according to Breese Blett, the actual numbers often higher. 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.440 That's because the f to a category of immigration preferences 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.920 that spouses and minor children of permanent US residents is 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.240 not capped. But that doesn't mean that they get in 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.520 right away. Those applications can face a projected weight time 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.080 of about two years, according to the latest State Department bulletin. 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.480 Other family categories have caps on the number of people 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.200 who can use them. For brothers and sisters, for example, 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.440 the cap is sixty five thousand immigrants per year, unless 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.480 there happens to be unneeded visas from the first three 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.360 categories to supplement. In addition to the cap on categories, 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.200 there's also a rule that no country can exceed seven 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.720 percent of the total people immigrating to the US in 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.800 a given year. A breeze split explains China, India, Mexico, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.160 and the Philippines are countries where there's a high desire 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.960 to immigrate, they have longer wait times because they hit 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.920 the limit sooner. Okay, but what about a foreign national 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.520 without relatives of the country who wants to come here 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.359 to take a job. While that's often a quicker route. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.640 In some cases, those immigrants have to wait for years 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.359 as well. Immigration for employment purposes is capped at a 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.960 much lower level, just a hundred and forty thousand people 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.040 per year, but the number of available slots is actually 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.200 less because those job related immigrants are allowed to bring 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.000 spouses and minor children, and those both are counted against 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.599 the a hundred and forty thousand person limit, according to 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.640 bree Split. Additionally, not all workers are equal. There are 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.960 different employment based preference categories. The first preference EB one 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.279 a k a. The Einstein Visa, goes to people deemed 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.920 to have extraordinary ability in various fields. There are also 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.760 categories for people with advanced degrees both professionals and skilled workers, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.520 and another for investors willing to put up one million 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.080 dollars or more to underwrite a new business that would 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.480 employ at least ten full time workers, although a fifty 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.040 thousand dollars is enough if the investment is targeted at 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.520 a rural or high unemployment area. To make things even 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.719 more complicated, that seven percent limit on immigration from a 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.320 particular country still has to be factored in. As a result, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.760 some workers from China could face a projected weight of 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.520 eleven years, while an immigrant from Vietnam in the same 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.960 category might be eligible immediately for a green card. Perhaps 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.240 the thing that people on both sides of the immigration 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.800 debate can agree on is that the system is messy 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.040 at best. In a June twenty seventeen Gallop poll, thirty 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.000 eight percent of Americans said that immigration should be maintained 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.719 at its present level, thirty five percent felt it should 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.040 be decreased, and twenty four percent favored allowing more immigrants 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:05.320 into the country. M HM. Today's episode was written by 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.279 Patrick J. Keiger and produced by Tyler Clang, with kind 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.320 engineering assistance by Ramsay Yount. For more on this and 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.080 lots of other sticky topics, visit our home planet, how 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:26.440 stuff Works dot com.