when we talk about immigration we
usually talk about specific kinds of
immigrants like illegal immigrants or
immigrants here to do high-skill jobs like
software engineers taking a step back
and looking at the whole picture might help
no that's too far
seeing all the types of immigration together will help
you understand where some of the different
immigration arguments fit into the whole
system so we'll try to answer two questions
one what are the different
types of immigration to the US?
and two how many immigrants come here in each category?
first of the different types of
immigrants you can come to the u.s. if
you're married to or engaged to a US citizen
the rules are a little different
depending on whether you're married or
not and how long you've been married
you can also come here in the immediate
family of the US citizens like a parent
sibling or child
there's also a special category for
orphans adopted by Americans when a
citizen's family members are coming to
the u.s. there's no limit to how many
husbands wives children under 21 or
parents that can immigrate but if a
citizen wants to bring their adult
children their grandchildren or their
brothers and sisters to the u.s. there
is a limit every year
so its first come first serve
you're also not eligible to come, even if
you qualify, if you've committed a
serious crime or stay past the end of your
allowed visit or haven't been vaccinated
the State Department can also
keep you out if they decide you're a
security risk or that you'll probably
need welfare the next big category aside from
family is people coming here at work
first a business has to apply to be able
to hire immigrants and then offer a
specific person a job before that person
can even start the process the first
group is people who have extraordinary
abilities in science art education
business or athletics we're talking
national or international reputations
like Nobel Prize winners national soccer
champions and that sort of thing these
people also don't need to have a job offer
before they come unlike everybody else
another part of this group is professors
and scientific researchers coming to
take jobs at colleges and universities
or managers and executives at
multinational companies transferring to
u.s. office the second group is people with
advanced degrees like PhDs, MBAs, MDs,
and so on experts in their fields
and people with bachelor's degrees and
several years of experience the third
group is regular unskilled, skilled, and
professional workers this means people whose
jobs take less than two years experience
or training people who need more than two
years and people need a college degree
to do their jobs
the fourth group includes a bunch of
small special groups like broadcasters,
ministers, former US government employees,
Iraqis and Afghanis who worked with the
US military, and some graduates of foreign
medical schools the 5th group is people
who've invested at least $1 million
or $500,00 in a high unemployment or rural areas
into businesses in America
the business has to
create at least ten jobs for American
workers within two years and that
doesn't count jobs created for the
investor's family each group gets a
percentage of the total amount of visas
given out every year for immigrants
coming here to work, so being in a more selective
group makes it way easier to get in
so start winning pie-eating contests future Americans
there's also a limit to how
many people can come from a particular
country every year on top of the category
limit so you might be within the limits for
your category but if people from your
country are 7% of the people
who immigrated to the united states that
year no one else in your country can
come the next kind of immigrant is a
refugee meaning someone who flees their
home country due to a reasonable fear of
being persecuted for their race
nationality religion political views or
being part of a particular social group
there's a limit to how many refugees can
come and then also a limit to how many can
come from a particular part of the world
if you'd like to learn more about how
refugees come to the u.s. check out our video on it
one big change is that President
Trump has signed an executive order which stops
all refugees for 120 days and doesn't allow
refugees from Syria at all after a
120 days, or about four months, the
yearly limit on refugees will be cut from a 110,000
to 50,000 a year
finally the special lottery for
immigrants every year 50,000 visa
applicants are randomly selected from
countries which have sent less than
50,000 immigrants to the US in the last
5 years the fewer immigrants your
country has sent the more likely it is
that you'll win to qualify
someone has to have at least a high
school education and the least 2 years
of experience in the last 5 years
working at a job which requires 2 years
training or experience president Trump
order also stops all immigration from
Iran Iraq Libya Somalia Sudan Syria and
Yemen for at least 30 days for the
government to add more screening and
vetting procedures we'll do a video on
how immigrants and refugees are
screened and processed soon
now for some numbers all the numbers
in 2015 over 1 million immigrants moved to the US most
of them came because they had family
already here especially immediate family
and the biggest category of those were
husbands and wives reuniting the second
biggest category is people coming to
work and then the third was refugees
in 2014 about 80 million children were
living with immigrant parents and that
number has gone up about 34%
since the year 2000 this puts it
about 1/4 of all the people in
the US under the age of 18 the number of
illegal or undocumented immigrants in
this country is guessed to be about 11
million which is 3% of the
total u.s. population of 324 million
this counts people who cross the border but
also people who come here legally and stay
past the end of their visa
some methods are easier than others
most illegal immigrants are from Mexico was almost
6 million after all it's hard to get
here from other places if you're poor
but the number of undocumented
immigrants from Mexico has been going
down since 2009 with more
coming instead from Central America Asia
and Africa studies guess that
8 million are working out of that 11 million total
which means about 5% of the total
workforce the total number of immigrants
in the united states is about 43 million
out of the US population of 324
million that's about 13.5%
there are also a little over 1
million permanent residents in the
u.s. who aren't citizens most of them are
from asia or North America meaning
Mexico or one of the Caribbean countries
that's permanent immigrants but what
about visitors
there's also a long list of allowed
reasons to visit the u.s.
an athlete coming for a professional competition
an au pair or nanny
certain Australian professionals, business visitors
foreign soldiers stationed here
foreign diplomats or employees of
a foreign organization that has an office here
someone on an educational or cultural exchange
visiting for medical treatment
serving on the crew of a visit ship or airplane
a journalist doctor or religious worker
seasonal laborers, tourists,
families of people with green cards or
someone brought to the United States because they were a victim
of a crime or human trafficking
certain professionals can also come here
temporarily from Mexico or Canada or
from another country if they have
specialized knowledge in 2014 about a
181 million people visited the
u.s. at some point most of them were
business travelers or tourists
or maybe a little bit of both?
about 3.5 million temporary
workers came some with their families
and there were 2 million students
some studying more practical fields than others
so the immigration system is complicated
some big things to remember is
that there are way more visitors than
immigrants that most immigrants come
because of family that's already here
that it's easier to work here the more
education you have and that there are limits
on how many people can come from each
country and how many refugees
can come from different parts of the world
but now you have an idea of all the
different kinds of immigration
and there you have it