Does anyone here REALLY know how difficult it is to get a green card?

Question

I was born here, but have known people who had to go through all those steps, but I forget. And others seem to think they give them out like lolly pops in the candy store. Please explain it to those less educated?

Answer 1

My wife got one in about a year. We had to do a lot of paperwork and wait and wait, but it wasn't that hard overall.

Answer 2

There are many stories about the long and difficult wait that many families and individuals often have to endure to obtain legal permanent residency in the U.S. Under current procedure, to receive a green card applicants must be sponsored by an employer or relative in the United States or may qualify as a refugee by proving they have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in their homeland. Delays result because the total number of visas available is limited. Family-based visas are capped at 480,000 annually and employment visas at 140,000. Furthermore, the number of refugees admitted is decided by the president and Congress, which set the limit at 70,000 in 2004.

Also, approximately 50,000 diversity immigrant visas are allocated each fiscal year via an annual lottery to people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. When either the fiscal year ends on the last day of September or the 50,000 cap is reached, whichever comes sooner, diversity visas are no longer issued for that year.

For workers with extraordinary skills or special status, such as exceptional scientists or academics, their wait is an average of three years before they can acquire a permanent work visa. Those hoping to come in under a separate program for family members of U.S. residents, other than immediate relatives to US Citizens, are looking at waits of three to 23 years, depending on their country of origin and the status of their relatives in the United States. A handful of countries flood immigration authorities with green card applications. As a result, immigrants from China, Mexico, the Philippines and India tend to wait the longest after applying through a family member living in the U.S. because demand is so great and are subject to per country cap on immigration.

Generally, delays are the result of both paperwork and the fact that there are far more applicants than visas available under the law. Applications filed by US Citizens, for their children, parents and spouses are unrestricted numerically by Congress and typically are processed in about one year. Applications filed by US Citizens for fiancé visas are also unrestricted and typically processed in about six months depending on the country of origin.

Further compounding the problem is that the application process has been slowed by extensive background checks since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Every day, the agency conducts 140,000 national security checks on individuals applying for permanent and temporary visas.

However, there is hope, as the wait for delays resulting from government paperwork backlog has dropped from 20 months to 11 months over the last year. U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hopes to reduce the wait for any immigration application paperwork processing to no more than six months by the end of next year. However this does not address the majority of the delays that seems to be resulting from the fact that there are more applicants than green cards allocated by Congress in most scenarios. Currently between 3 million and 4 million people around the world are waiting for green cards, so that they may live and work permanently in the U.S.

Answer 3

I do. I've been working at it for nearly ten years. I am finally getting very close to meeting the requirements, though.

This is precisely why illegal immigration incenses me so. I'm an intelligent fellow, it would be easy for me to obtain fraudulent documentation if I wanted.