How Legal Immigration Works: Visas, Green Cards, and Caps
Key takeaways
- The United States grants about 1.2 million green cards a year, most through family ties, with about 140,000 for workers and their families and up to 55,000 through a lottery.
- Spouses, minor children, and parents of adult U.S. citizens face no annual cap, while other family and employment categories are capped and no country may get more than 7 percent of capped visas.
- Those caps create waits of years or decades for some applicants from India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines.
- Temporary visas such as the H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN, H-2A, and F-1 let people work or study for set periods, and many later seek green cards.
- USCIS, the State Department, the Labor Department, and Customs and Border Protection each handle part of the process.
- In 2025 and 2026 the government added a 100,000 dollar payment for new H-1B workers from abroad, expanded travel bans to 39 countries, paused the diversity lottery, and tightened vetting.
Most immigrants come to the United States legally, through a system Congress built mainly in 1965 and 1990 around family reunification, job skills, and diversity. It is complicated, involves several agencies, and has not been overhauled since the 1990s, so long waits and backlogs are common.
This guide explains the main paths, the caps and lines, who decides each step, and the recent policy changes.
About 140,000 green cards a year go to workers and their families in five categories: EB-1 for people of extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers, and multinational managers, EB-2 for advanced degree holders and the national interest waiver, EB-3 for skilled and other workers, EB-4 for special immigrants such as religious workers, and EB-5 for investors. Most EB-2 and EB-3 cases require the employer to get Labor Department certification that no qualified U.S. worker is available. A 2025 gold card program offering faster consideration for payments of 1 million dollars or more drew lawsuits over its legal basis.
Immigration law is set mainly by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, rewritten in 1965 to replace national origins quotas with a system based on family ties and skills, and expanded in 1990. Foreigners come either as nonimmigrants, for a temporary purpose such as tourism, study, or work, or as immigrants who receive permanent residence, a green card. About 1.2 million people received green cards in fiscal 2023, and there are about 13 million permanent residents. Congress sets the categories and caps, while agencies apply them.
Congress writes the law, USCIS approves petitions and green cards inside the country, consulates issue visas abroad, and CBP decides admission at the border, while the President can suspend entry of classes of foreigners. In 2025 and 2026 the government expanded travel bans to 39 countries, paused immigrant visas for 75 countries until a court vacated the pause in August 2026, tightened public charge and vetting rules, and raised fees. Supporters say the changes protect security and American workers. Critics say they cut legal immigration that benefits the economy and families, and both sides agree Congress has not updated the system in decades.
Nonimmigrant visas allow specific activities for set periods. The H-1B for specialty occupations is capped at 85,000 new visas a year, with a lottery when demand exceeds supply, weighted toward higher wages starting with fiscal 2027. A September 2025 proclamation required a 100,000 dollar payment for new H-1B petitions for workers outside the country, which a judge upheld in December 2025. Other visas include the L-1, O-1, TN, H-2A for farmworkers, H-2B, F-1 for students, and B visas for visitors, while people from about 40 countries can visit without a visa.
Family ties are the largest path. Spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents of adult U.S. citizens are immediate relatives with no annual cap. Other relatives of citizens, including adult children and siblings, and spouses and children of green card holders, fall into four preference categories capped at about 226,000 a year. A citizen or permanent resident files a petition, and the relative waits for a visa number, which can take from months to more than 20 years depending on the category and country.
Because demand exceeds the capped numbers and no country may receive more than 7 percent of them, applicants wait in line by priority date, tracked in the State Department's monthly Visa Bulletin. Waits are longest for Indian and Chinese workers and for some Mexican and Filipino family members. Up to 55,000 diversity visas a year go to lottery winners from countries with low immigration, but the administration paused that program in December 2025.
See humanitarian paths in asylum, refugees, and TPS, the agencies involved in who handles immigration, or the final step in how citizenship is gained and lost.