Barriers to Legal Immigration

How the United States Immigration System WorksU.S. immigration law is very complex, and there is much confusion as to how it works. This fact sheet provides basic information about how the U.S. legal immigration system is designed.

In order to understand why some immigrants attempt border crossing, it is important to be aware of how legal immigration works in the United States. Legal immigration is a multi-year (and even multi-decade) process that is only open to a select number of people.

There are Four Main Paths to Immigration in the United States.

There are heavy restrictions to determine eligibility immigrant visas. If a person does not meet the definition of a refugee, have an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen, or have an employer who is willing to sponsor them, the diversity lottery is effectively their only option. However, if more than 50,000 people have immigrated from a person's home country in the last five years, that person is ineligible to apply for the diversity lottery, meaning that there is no pathway for that person to immigrate to the U.S.

Why Don’t Immigrants Apply for Citizenship?There is no line available for undocumented immigrants and the “regular channels” do not include them.

Explainer: How the U.S. Legal Immigration System WorksThrough which visa categories can immigrants move temporarily or permanently to the United States? What are the main channels by which people come, and who can sponsor them for a green card? Are there limits on visa categories? And who is waiting in the green-card backlog? This explainer answers basic questions about temporary and permanent immigration via family, employment, humanitarian, and other channels.

“Why Don’t They Just Get in Line?” Barriers to Legal Immigration[I]t is impossible to ignore how the past year has seen the meager legal immigration system become more closed than at any point since the end of the Great Depression.

The United States government labels seasonal workers, particularly agricultural workers, as 'low-skill workers.' This terminology devalues the work of these people, who tend to already be vulnerable and marginalized. The official congressional report on 'lower-skilled workers' can be found here