North Carolina, Charlotte – There are two major limitations preventing immigrants from obtaining the “green card"through a family petition," according to a recent report from the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan public studies foundation.
According to the report: “Why legal immigration is almost impossible” , restrictions on the relationship with a sponsor, and limitations imposed by Congress, harm this family-based immigration process.
A system that closes the routes to reach the country legally
El study evaluates, that, “the family-sponsored system suffers from two important unnecessary restrictions.
First, the types of relatives eligible to sponsor are much more limited than the diversity of family relationships among immigrants.”
An example of this, the report indicates, is that many of the immigrants who travel across the border between the US and Mexico come with uncles, grandparents, or in-laws, but not all of them qualify for a family petition.
"Many of these types of relatives act as financial sponsors by acting as joint sponsors for a qualifying relative. However, the relative in these other family relationships is not permitted to receive legal permanent residence based solely on their sponsorship," the report states.
“This unnecessarily closes avenues for immigrants to come legally,” he added.
He explains as an example that Canada allows the sponsorship of immigrants by grandparents in some circumstances. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has a path for parents of citizen children. Even if the father is not married to a UK citizen.
Congress imposed a limit on family sponsorship Green Card
The report addresses how current immigration laws have complicated legal immigration, through a second limitation, by imposing the immigration law a totally unnecessary limit on family sponsorship of the Green Card (Family Based Green Card).
CATO indicates that before the 1920s, US law had no annual limits on immigrants, although it did have a public charge rule, anyone, including any family member, could act as the immigrant's sponsor.
"These arbitrary caps have effectively ended much of the family-sponsored immigration system as a means of future legal immigration," the institute warned.
"A process that takes longer than many people's normal working lives is not a valid alternative to illegal immigration," he said.
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Limits update
The analysis adds that Congress last updated the limits in 1990, and in the three decades since then, the number of American households has increased from 93 million to 128 million.
“If the limits remain in place, they should automatically increase with the number of American households,” it notes.
CATO also suggests that Congress should exempt spouses and minor children (dependents) from the annual limits.
“Dependents use about half of the cap, and it doesn't make sense to drastically reduce the number of primary applicants just because they are married or have children,” he notes.
This reform alone would have prevented delays sponsored by both the employer as the family has grown since 1990.
Low number of “green card” assignments due to family request
The report indicates that the average number of immigrants who received legal permanent residence by family category from 2011 to 2020 is 810,375 (78.7%).
That is, nearly four in five legal immigrants qualified for a green card through family connections, either through relatives in the United States (65%) or a family member who qualified under one of the non-family categories. (14%).
However, since 2016, when there was a peak of 941,749 immigrants who received the “green card” through family petition, a decline has been seen year after year, jumping from 834,521 in 2019 to 552,395 in 2020.
Perhaps this last year due to closures and delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Permanent residence for immediate family members are limited
According to the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), permanent residence for immediate family members of US citizens is unlimited, so they are always available.
Currently, after completing Form I-130 or Petition for a Relative, along with Form I-485 (Application for Adjustment of Status), the approval process can take a little more than 12 months for immediate family members (spouses, children, parents of citizens) and several years for other categories of relatives.
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