THE NUMBERS
About half of all US immigrants (26 million) were born in this world region.
What is Latin America?
It's the official name of anyone who has a Green Card, indicating that they can live and work anywhere in the United States.
What is a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR)?
This is the category of crime for illegally crossing the US border.
What is a misdemeanor?
For clarification, if someone has been formally deported, removed, or denied entry and is later found to have returned, they are then charged with a Felony.
It's the process by which Lawful Permanent Residents can become U.S. citizens.
What is Naturalization?
It's what ICE stands for.
What is Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
According to the Pew Research Center, this is the NUMBER of foreign-born people living in the US as of June 2025, down by over 1M from January 2025.
What is 52 Million?
That means 15.8 PERCENT of US population and 19% of our workforce is made of foreign-born residents. Additional sources cite an even greater decline, possibly down to 49.7M as of January 2026.
H1-B is a typical type of this.
What is a Work Visa?
Did you know there are 24 letters used in the "Alphabet Soup" of the US visa system? F visa - for Students, B visa - for Visitors, etc.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Constitutional Amendments guarantee this to all individuals in the United States, regardless of country of birth or immigration status.
What is Due Process?
Everyone gets due process — but the process is different in immigration court than in criminal court. For example, immigration violations (like overstaying a visa) are not crimes. Because they're civil offenses, people don’t get the same rights they would in criminal court, such as the right to a court-appointed attorney or the right to a jury, but they do have the right to a hearing and to present evidence. They can have a lawyer if they pay for it themselves.
People living under DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, are often referred to as these.
What are Dreamers?
There are about 525,210 active DACA recipients in the U.S. as of March 31, 2025. But the broader “Dreamer” population — meaning undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — is estimated at nearly 2.5 million.
Because the immigration court system is so overwhelmed, asylum seekers often wait this many years for their cases to be heard.
What is 4+ years?
With roughly 735 immigration judges and a record-breaking 3.6 million pending asylum cases, the average number of cases each judge has (if divided evenly) is 4,900. The National Immigration Forum estimates an average immigration court wait of 4.3 years for asylum cases. Judges have hearings scheduled into 2030 and beyond.
The U.S. offers roughly this number of employment-based green cards per year.
What is 140,000?
Did you know that the US issues about 1M Green Cards in total every year?
This designation is used for a person OUTSIDE his or her country who is unable or unwilling to return because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group (PSG), or political opinion.
What is a Refugee?
Depending on their country of origin and visa category, this is the number of years (or more!) some immigrants could be stuck waiting for their green card.
What is 20+ years?
Because of per-country visa caps and high demand, some family-based green card categories (like siblings of U.S. citizens, “F4”) can face waits of 14–20+ years. Employment-based green cards (especially EB-2 and EB-3) for people from oversubscribed countries (e.g., India, China) may also wait 10+ years.
These qualifications include marrying a US citizen, being sponsored by a Permanent Resident, being sponsored by an employer, being a refugee or asylee, or winning the "immigration lottery."
What is "How to get a Green Card?"
In 2023, the total number of green cards issued was 1.17M. Of these, about 64% were family-sponsored, about 17% were employment-based, 8.5% went to Refugees & Asylees, 5.7% were granted through the Diversity Visa/Lottery system, and about 4.6% to all others (e.g., religious workers, certain international org workers, etc.).
Although both operate under the Dept of Homeland Security, ICE and Border Patrol Agents differ in these ways.
What is ICE focuses on interior enforcement, investigations, and removals, while Border Patrol operates at or within 100 miles of a border/port of entry to prevent illegal entry?
ICE was established under Homeland Security Act of 2002 by the George W. Bush administration as part of the major government reorganization that followed 9/11.
This is the MAXIMUM PERCENT of all green cards issued to citizens of any one country per calendar year.
What is 7%?
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouse, parent, child under 21) are exempt from this 7% cap.
This refers to someone who meets the definition of Refugee and is already INSIDE the United States or is seeking admission at a US port of entry.
What is an Asylum Seeker?
REFUGEES apply for protection from OUTSIDE the United States and their status is granted BEFORE they arrive in the US. ASYLEES apply for protection from inside the United States or at a U.S. border/port of entry and their status is granted AFTER arrival.
This is the term for a conviction that will automatically trigger removal proceedings.
What is an aggravated felony?
Despite the serious sound of the term, an aggravated felony for immigration purposes can include many nonviolent or minor offenses in addition to more serious crimes.
Whether you’re applying for asylum, a green card, DACA, TPS, or work authorization, you cannot avoid this biometric rite of passage at the Application Support Center.
What is getting fingerprinted?
This is the name for the process that allows an undocumented individual to be deported without seeing an immigration judge, usually taking place within hours.
What is Expedited Removal?
However, under the U.S.-endorsed CAT treaty (UN Convention Against Torture), the U.S. cannot deport anyone to a country where they are “more likely than not” to be tortured. The treaty applies to all individuals, regardless of immigration status, including undocumented people and those with criminal convictions.
This is an annual lottery providing 55,000 visas to individuals from countries with historically low immigration rates to the U.S.
What is the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program?
These new immigrants are selected by random lottery from under-represented countries.
This was enacted by Congress in 1990 and is meant to safeguard people already living in the US if disaster strikes in their native countries - e.g. a natural disaster, an epidemic, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions”, rendering them unable to return there safely.
What is TPS (Temporary Protected Status)?
Before a TPS designation is set to end for a particular nation, the homeland security secretary decides whether to extend it for existing beneficiaries, re-designate it so that newer people can apply or terminate it once the US deems that the country’s conditions have improved.
This controversial practice involves law enforcement considering race, ethnicity, or language when making enforcement decisions, including stops.
What is Racial Profiling?
As early as 1975, a Supreme Court ruling, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, held that immigration officers may rely on “reasonable suspicion” — informed by experience and common-sense judgments — to stop vehicles near the border, permitting them to use racial and linguistic markers (such as Latino appearance and Spanish language). In 2026, the Supreme Court again allowed ICE to use apparent ethnicity, language, workplace, and location when assessing reasonable suspicion.
To become naturalized, most applicants must live in the U.S. as Permanent Residents for this many years.
What is five years?
Or three if married to a U.S. citizen.
This constitutional doctrine allows federal immigration law to override conflicting state immigration laws.
What is federal preemption?