US Green Card Big Player: Queuing and Leak Detection Rules in Super Water Parks
Getting a green card in the United States is like entering a super water park with complex rules. There are several different large slides in the amusement park, and in order to prevent overcrowding on some slides, the park has established a complex set of rules for queuing, diversion, and adjustment.
As long as you understand the operating logic of this system, you can understand why some people don't have to queue while others wait for more than ten years.
1、 Several core slides in the amusement park
The entrance channels in the amusement park may seem diverse, but they are mainly composed of two mainstream channels and several special channels.
1. Family Immigration Channel: See Your Ability to Reincarnate and Get Married
This is the largest and oldest passage, divided into two major camps. There is a crucial watershed here: whether there are quota restrictions.
·Immediate relatives (unlimited): If you are the spouse of a US citizen, unmarried children under the age of 21, or parents of a US citizen over the age of 21, congratulations on receiving the privilege. This channel is unlimited and does not require scheduling. As long as the procedures are legal, tickets can be purchased directly for entry.
·Family Priority Category (Limited): In addition to the direct relatives mentioned above, all other relatives must queue here, with a total legal quota of 226000 per year worldwide. The amusement park divided them into four levels based on their distance from each other:
F1 (first priority): Unmarried adult children of US citizens (aged 21 and above).
F2 (Second Priority): Spouses and children of green card holders.
F3 (Third Priority): Married children of US citizens.
O F4 (fourth priority): brothers and sisters of US citizens. This is the main battlefield where uncles and aunts line up, often for more than ten years.
2. Career immigration channel: a track between workplace elites and investors
For professionals and investment immigrants, the global annual statutory quota is 140000. This is divided into 5 levels:
·EB-1 (First Priority): Outstanding Talents. For example, Olympic champions, multinational executives, and top scholars belong to various gods.
·EB-2 (Second Priority): Professionals with high education (master's degree or above) or high skills.
·EB-3 (Third Priority): Professionals with a bachelor's degree, skilled workers, or unskilled workers.
·EB-4 (Fourth Priority): Special immigrants, such as religious workers and overseas government employees.
·EB-5 (Fifth Priority): Immigrant Investor Program. Invest money in the United States and create at least 10 job opportunities.
3. Hidden niche slides: humanitarian and special passages
·Humanitarian asylum for immigrants: preparing for those who are persecuted. Those who apply abroad are called refugees, with an annual limit set by the President and Congress; Those who have already applied for asylum within the country are called asylum, and the green card for asylum is unlimited and not subject to any national restrictions. The logic of humanitarianism is to save lives, not to push the remaining eligible people back to the pit of fire just because a country has a large number of people passing through.
·Lottery for immigration: a fixed quota of 55000 per year. This is purely luck. As long as you have a high school degree and were born in a country or region with a "very low immigration rate in the United States" (such as Japan, Taiwan, China, Europe, etc.), you can lottery for free. Because Chinese Mainland and India are areas with high immigration rate, the born in these two places are totally ineligible to participate.
·Amnesty and Special Acts: Amnesty is a political historical event (such as Reagan's amnesty of nearly 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986), which is legislated by Congress to directly issue green cards without occupying daily quotas. A special bill is an extremely rare geek channel. If a case is extremely tragic or has made great contributions, a member of Congress will specifically write a law for that person and send it to Congress for approval.
·Ways to join the military: For example, in the past, the recruitment plan for scarce talents allowed foreign soldiers to bypass the green card and directly naturalize. Since I am a direct citizen, I am consuming the quota for citizenship and therefore do not occupy the green card quota.
2、 Anti congestion fence: "7% national quota"
If the amusement park opens its doors, some populous countries may occupy all global quotas in a year. In order to reflect 'internationalization', the US law has established a rigid barrier:
In any country, the number of green cards obtained annually in the family preference or occupational immigration category cannot exceed 7% of the global quota for that category.
This means that out of the 140000 job migration quotas, each country can allocate up to 9800 per year.
For example, it's like holding a professional concert for 140000 people in a amusement park.
·There are only 50 people in Iceland who want to come this year, so after these 50 people enter, Iceland's quota is still half, so there is no need to queue.
·China and India each have 100000 people who want to come. But I'm sorry, due to the 7% hard fence blocking, your country can only accommodate a maximum of 9800 people this year. The remaining 90200 people can only set up camp outside the door, which forms a "schedule".
3、 The Road to Heaven's Endless Path: "Adjustment" and "Leakage" of Quotas
What if some categories of tickets are not sold out while others are crowded? The immigration department has an automatic adjustment "water pipe" system.
1. The 'big water pipe' within professional immigration
Within professional immigration, the quota is strictly based on a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. If in a certain year the number of global EB-1 talents decreases and there are still vacancies left, this "surplus grain" will be directly injected into the pool of EB-2. If EB-2 is not used up, it will continue to flow down to EB-3. On the other hand, if there are unused spots in the bottom tier EB-3, it will be returned to EB-1 upwards.
2. The 'big cross boundary' between relatives and professions
If the 226000 priority class spots for relatives are not used up worldwide this year, the remaining spots will all be given to career immigrants in the following year. In the past few years, due to some special reasons, overseas consulates were temporarily closed, and a large amount of family immigration was wasted. As a result, more than 100000 quotas were "released" into professional immigration, which doubled the total quota of professional immigration.
3. Breaking the 7% limit for "ultimate leak detection"
This is the rule that Chinese and Indian applicants are most concerned about: under what circumstances can the 7% limit be exceeded? According to the law, if the total global quota cannot be exhausted (including all applicants from non queued countries), the remaining quota can be allocated to applicants from excess countries who are in a scheduling state without being limited by 7%.
Classic Case: The "Adjustment Myth" of EB-5 Chinese Investors
From 2012 to 2016, the wealthy class in Chinese Mainland had a tsunami like demand for investment immigrants (EB-5). However, the vast majority of other countries in the world (such as Iceland, Namibia, etc.) have little interest in investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the United States with their entire family.
According to the 7% rule, China can only secure 700 spots per year. But in those years, the remaining 100+countries in the world combined only consumed a total of 2000 spots per year.
At this point, the immigration department initiated a transfer mechanism: the remaining 8000 unused spots worldwide were lifted from the 7% restriction, and the gates were opened to release water, all of which were distributed to Chinese applicants in the queue. In those years, Chinese investors actually took away more than 80% of the green cards in the entire investment immigration track. This is using other countries' 'hunger to feed high demand countries' severe hunger'.
4. Cross border borrowing for couples traveling together
The green card quota depends on your place of birth, not your nationality. If the husband was born in Chinese Mainland (a big scheduled country), and the wife was born in Hong Kong, China or Malaysia, which is not scheduled. When they apply for a career immigration green card together, the husband can "borrow" his wife's place of birth quota and directly go through a non scheduled channel. This is called "cross referencing" in immigration law, which is equivalent to buying a VIP pass and directly bypassing a long queue.
4、 Summary
The entire immigration quota in the United States is like a precise ecological food chain: humanitarian and lottery immigration are independent and isolated, ensuring the harvest of crops in droughts and floods; Relatives and occupational immigrants are connected water tanks. The surplus from the top is given to the bottom, the surplus from small countries in the world is given to major countries in China and India, and the surplus from relatives is given to professions. By understanding the direction of water flow, one can also understand the barometer of green card scheduling.
This article is provided by Zhang Daqin Immigration Law Firm in Los Angeles (www.visatopia. com).
