Cato: How Time Can Move Backward For Immigrants Waiting for Green Cards

Many Americans want immigrants to “get in line.” But they cannot do so on their own. They need to get a sponsor, either a U.S. citizen family member or a U.S. employer, to petition the government to grant them permanent residency (a “green card”). Even if immigrants do obtain sponsors, there isn’t just one line to get into. Rather, immigrants have separate lines based on the type of sponsorship and their country of origin, and these lines all move at different speeds. Even two immigrants working in essentially the same position whose employer petitions for them on the same day can end up receiving their green cards decades apart if they were born different places.

How America still discriminates based on nationality:

This bizarre fact is a consequence of the racist history of U.S. immigration law. In 1921, Congress created the first quota on legal immigration (the “worldwide limit” ). Three years later, it created limits for individual nationalities (the “per-country limits”). The per-country limits give each nationality a share of the worldwide limit. If nationals of a certain country use up their share of the green cards, they have to wait, and immigrants from other countries get to skip ahead of them in line. (And no, Congress made sure that immigrants can’t evade the per-country quotas by getting citizenship somewhere else. Birthplace is all that matters.)

Initially, the per-country limits openly discriminated against “undesirable” immigrants, defined as Asians, Africans, and Eastern Europeans (mostly Jews). But in 1965, Congress made the per-country limits uniform across countries. Today, no country can receive more than 7 percent of the worldwide limit in any green card category. But this reform just shifted the discrimination toward nationalities with the highest demand for green cards. The goal here was not any less racist. The debates over the law abounded with “liberals” reassuring conservatives that America wouldn’t be flooded with Asians.

In order to apply for a green card, green cards must be available under both the worldwide limit and the per-country limit for the relevant category. After their sponsors petition for them to receive a green card, immigrants wait in line to apply for the green card themselves. The State Department releases a green card bulletin every month to inform immigrants of which ones can apply that month. Immigrants whose sponsor petitioned for them before a certain date—called the “priority date”—can apply. Everyone else must continue to wait.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/how-time-can-move-backward-immigrants-waiting-green-cards-4