You are thinking prior to 1965. Immigration is a consistent, steady number. The caps were doubled under Bush 41. Today, we bring in 1.1 million legal permanent immigrants a year and 640,000 guest workers annually. Another 70,000 a year come here as refugees. Since 1990 35 million legal permanent immigrants have entered this country.
The maximum number of family-sponsored and employment-based preference visas that can be issued to citizens of any country in a fiscal year. The limits are calculated each fiscal year depending on the total number of family-sponsored and employment-based visas available. No more than 7 percent of the visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year; no more than 2 percent may issued to any one dependency of any independent country.
The per-country limit does not indicate, however, that a country is entitled to the maximum number of visas each year, just that it cannot receive more than that number. Because of the combined workings of the preference system and per-country limits, most countries do not reach this level of visa issuance.
How many immigrants are admitted to the United States every year? By statute, Congress has placed a limit on the number of foreign-born individuals who are admitted to the United States annually as family-based or employment-based immigrants or as refugees. Family-based immigration is limited by statute to 480,000 persons per year. Family-based immigration is governed by a formula that imposes a cap on every family-based immigration category, with the exception of "immediate relatives" (spouses, minor unmarried children, and parents of U.S. citizens).
The formula allows unused employment-based immigration visas in one year to be dedicated to family-based immigration the following year, and unused family-based immigration visas in one year to be added to the cap the next year. This formula means that there are slight variations from year to year in family-based immigration. Because of the numerical cap, there are long waiting periods to obtain a visa in most of the family-based immigrant categories.
There is no numerical cap on the number of immediate relatives (spouses, minor unmarried children and parents of U.S. citizens) admitted annually to the U.S. as immigrants. However, the number of immediate relatives are subtracted from the 480,000 cap on family-based immigration to determine the number of other family-based immigrants to be admitted in the following year (with a floor of 226,000).
Employment-based immigration is limited by statute to 140,000 persons per year. In most cases, before the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will issue an employment-based immigrant visa to a foreign-born individual, the employer first must obtain a "labor certification" from the U.S. Department of Labor confirming that there are an insufficient number of U.S. workers able, qualified and willing to perform the work for which the foreign-born individual is being hired.
