United States Immigration Policy

I did not know much about the U.S. immigration policy and that is why I found this assignment and the talk by Greg Cunningham so useful. It helped me to understand a little bit more about this. When looking at the research it helped clarify a few questions I had as well. The information I found first explained a lot. First stating the immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) provides for an annual worldwide limit of 675,000 permanent immigrants, with certain exceptions for close family members. The congress and the President determine a separate number of refugee admissions. Later explaining, the total limit is broken down into limits for each region of the world and after September 11 , 2011 the number of refugees admitted into the United States fell drastically. However, the annual admissions have steadily increased.

What I found important to note when researching and while also hearing Greg Cunningham’s lecture was that family unification is an important principle governing the immigration policy.  The family-based immigration category allows for United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to bring certain family members in the United States. There are about 480,000 family-based visits available each year.

What I also found highly interesting was learning that there are more than 20 types of visas for temporary nonimmigrant workers. There are L visas which are for intercompany transfers, P visas for athletes, entertainers and skilled performers, R visas for religious workers, A visas for diplomatic employees, O visas for workers of extraordinary ability, and a variety of H visas for both highly skilled and lesser skilled employment.  I never realized how many visas there actually were, and how complicated it could get.

Lastly, learning how to gain United States citizenship was surprising to me as well. It is explained that in order to qualify for U.S. citizenship through naturalization an individual must have had a lawful permanent resident status, as known as a green card, for at least five years. Or, it specifies, for three years if he or she obtained the green card through a United States citizen spouse or through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Also, there are other exceptions for members of the United States military who serve in a time of war or declared hostilities. Applicants for United States citizenship must be at least 18 years old, demonstrate continuous residency, demonstrate good moral character, and pass English and U.S. history and civics exams. They are required to pay an application fee plus fulfill many other requirements that are involved.

Learning these facts about the U.S. Immigration Policy really caught my attention because I did not realize how complex and hard of a process it could be. This was a very informational topic that I haven’t looked into before. I enjoyed learning about these different aspects in the policy.