The term “Green Card” originated in the 1970s when the card was actually green. In the 1980s and 1990s, the card was pink, but the former name was stuck in popular culture. It’s now a high tech, holographic melody of colors, and will undoubtedly change again in about 8 years when the next generation is released. Whatever color or form it takes, it is the world’s most sought after immigration benefit.
A permanent resident of the United States enjoys living here with very few restrictions while still remaining a citizen of their homeland. One can work, travel, and otherwise live as if they are a national of the United States with permanent residency. There are a few things a permanent resident cannot do, which are usually also the reasons permanent residents apply for citizenship.
Permanent residents cannot vote. This limit is obviously one that is significant to some and not to others. Moving along the continuum of limitations, permanent residents cannot leave the U.S. indefinitely. If they leave for more than six months at a time, the time they accrue for the purposes of naturalization eligibility (to become a U.S. citizen) gets reset to 0, and if they stay out of the U.S. for more than one year, their permanent residency (which is also an immigrant visa document) loses its visa properties; in other words, it no longer is a valid entry document. For those that leave the U.S. for more than one year, a Re-entry Permit, or “white passport”, is required to re-enter the U.S. Last and most significantly, a permanent resident who leaves the U.S. for any significant length of time while failing to keep any ties to the U.S., such as employment, property and other assets, can be subject to a doctrine called abandonment. Abandonment can be alleged by the government if it believes the permanent resident left without any intent of remaining a resident of the U.S. The allegation is usually made when a permanent resident is returning to the U.S. after a long stay, or series of long stays, outside of the U.S. The resident’s green card is typically confiscated and a Notice to Appear is issued with a date to present defenses to the allegation in front of an Immigration Judge sitting at the Executive Office of Immigration Review.
The last, and perhaps most significant, inhibition a permanent resident faces is that petitioning for family-based visas on behalf of close relatives is not possible in certain categories. If it is possible at all, there are significant backlogs in the categories that a permanent resident can use. Those include petitions for spouses and for children under 21, and single children over 21. The Department of State’s Visa Bulletin details the waits in these categories.
A foreign national can gain permanent residency in one of four ways, though “can” is a qualified “can”. Perhaps it’s better to say it is possible to get it through one of these four routes, because each category has its own significant restrictions.
The first way of petitioning for a green card is through a close family member who is either a U.S. Citizen or a Legal Permanent Resident, though U.S. Citizen status is the ticket to a faster route. We’ll get into the ins and outs of family-based immigration in the future, but for now, suffice it to say that those who are eligible include spouses, minor children, children over 21 if their single (married adult children only qualify if the petitioner is a U.S.C.), and siblings of U.S.C.s, though that fourth category is so backlogged it’s not worth talking about. In general family-based petitioning starts with filing a Form I-130 with the Regional Service Center that has jurisdiction over the U.S.C/LPR Petitioner. There are four Service Centers: California, Texas, Nebraska and Vermont. The Immigration & Nationality Act ("INA") prescribes that 480,000 family-based visas are available under the quota system, but the number of immediate relatives (spouses and minor children of U.S. Citizens) is not limited.
The other major category of permanent resident applications is through the employment-based petition. It requires that an employee first acquire certification from the U.S. Department of Labor that the position at issue will not displace a U.S. worker. There are different categories of employment-based cases, much like there are in the family-based category. The similarities between the two tracks include the fact that some categories are current and some are not. Typically, the less skills and education the position requires, the lower the category, and the less likely the category is to be current and available for immediate issuance of a visa. 140,000 visas through employment are allowed each year under the INA. Employment-based visas are very complicated, and will require several days of blogging to explain. Stay tuned for a thorough discussion of that process.
The third way a person can acquire permanent residency is through the Diversity Visa program, also known as the DV Lottery. Only in America can a person get an approved visa through a true lottery! The program is administered by the Department of State, and is meant to even out the influx of immigrants to include a sampling from a wide-range of countries, thus the name “Diversity”. There is a limit imposed on each country, and many countries with high immigration levels to the U.S. are not included in the lottery. Those excluded from the drawing include Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The instructions for applying for the DV Lottery for the Fiscal Year 2008 program (which begins in October of 2006, go figure), can be found here.
Finally, foreign nationals who arrive in the U.S. as asylees or refugees can apply to become permanent residents after remaining in the U.S. for at least one year as an asylee or refugee. Again, there are annual quotas that restrict the number of people who can obtain their permanent residence in this category; this has led to lengthy backlogs (5 years+) for asylees applying for permanent residency. The number of asylees allowed in FY 2005 was 70,000, though far fewer actually entered the U.S. This is consistent with the general decline in numbers since 1995 when 99,490 entered.
Permanent residency in the U.S. is the most sought after immigration benefit in the world today. Acquiring it is not a simple process, and contrary to some Restrictionist’s opinions, the level of immigration in the U.S. is at a healthy level historically. Consider the following non-partisan statistics. In the 1990s, there were 4 new immigrants for every 1000 U.S. Citizens. This number is at about one-half of the historical number in the 20th Century; Immigrants pay about $80,000 more in taxes during their lifetime in the U.S. than they take in public benefits. That translates to some pretty astounding numbers. According to the IRS, immigrants paid $133 billion dollars in taxes in 1998, and that’s not all – their businesses paid an additional 100 billion….yes, that’s right – their total tax contribution was nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Remember that stat the next time someone starts hammering immigrants for weighing down our economy.
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