Family Reunification

U.S. immigration laws are based on the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act and subsequent amendments. These laws grant priority for permanent residence status to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents for family reunification. Priority is also given to applicants with critical job skills, refugees and asylum seekers, and applicants from countries with low levels of immigration to the United States (diversity immigrants). The Immigration Act of 1990 specifies an annual limit of between 416,000 and 675,000 for family-sponsored preferences, employment preferences, and diversity immigrants. The annual limit for family-sponsored preferences is from 226,000 to 480,000 immigrants, accounting for more than half of all immigration priorities. There are also per country and dependent area limits of 7 percent and 2 percent respectively, for the total number of family-sponsored and employment preferences.

Family reunification consists of two categories: immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and family-sponsored preferences. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens include spouses of U.S. citizens, unmarried minor children of U.S. citizens, and parents of U.S. citizens. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens account for 40 percent or more of the annual legal permanent residence status. This category has no numerical limit. Family-sponsored preferences consist of four numerically limited categories: (1) unmarried, adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens and their children; (2) spouses, minor children, and unmarried, adult sons and daughters of legal U.S. permanent residents; (3) married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens and their spouses and children; and (4) brothers and sisters, including their spouses and children, of adult U.S. citizens.

A Petition for Alien Relative (Form 1–130), submitted by a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident, must be approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to receive legal permanent residence as an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen or as a family preference immigrant. Filing the petition establishes a priority date for the immigrant. The U.S. State Department monitors the availability of visas within the categories and country limits, and issues a permanent immigrant visa (green card) to the immigrant if there is no administrative backlog. Before issuing the visa, the State Department completes [Page 361]criminal history background checks and ensures that the immigrant is not a security threat and is admissible to the United States.

Current immigration laws and practices regarding family reunification may warrant further review, as families typically experience lengthy periods of separation while waiting for reunification. In 2000, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now known as USCIS, had 1,190,768 pending 1–130 applications, as compared with 747,369 applications in 1994. This administrative backlog, caused by insufficient human resources and the increasing numbers of various application types filed, contributes to a minimum processing time of 24 months for permanent resident visas. Further, as the demand for visas exceeds the number of visas available for family-sponsorship preferences, a second backlog results from the discrepancy between the demand for visas and the actual availability of visas. Except for the immediate relative category, with no country or category limits, all other categories of family-sponsorship immigration have processing delays.

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