THE NUMBERS
This is the NUMBER of foreign-born people living in the US as of June 2025.
What is 51.9 Million?
That means 15.8 PERCENT of US population is made of foreign-born residents.
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 common understanding, in New York State, a person who is caught shoplifting and arrested, is charged with a Misdemeanor. If someone has been formally deported, removed, or denied entry and later comes back, then the charge is 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?
About half of all US immigrants (26 million) were born in this world region.
What is Latin America?
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.
Overstaying a visa, also called unlawful presence, can result in these things, as per law
What are being fined, deported, or unable to temporarily apply for another visa?
Based upon our statutes, the person who overstays their Visa has NOT committed a crime, they face civil penalties. However, they can be arrested by ICE and deported as they don't have status to remain.
These 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?"
Breakdown of Green Cards by Major Admission Pathways (FY 2023): Total green cards issued:1.17M, Family-sponsored: ~64% of Green cards, Employment-based: ~17%, Refugees & Asylees: ~8.5%, Diversity Visa (Lottery): ~5.7%, Other Categories: ~4.6% — includes special immigrants (religious workers, certain international org workers, etc.)
Under the Big Beautiful Bill, the ICE budget will increase from 10 Billion to this amount over the next four years.
What is 100 Billion?
Under the BBB, 10,000 ICE Agents, 5000 Customs Officers, and 3000 Border Patrol Agents are due to be added.
U.S. offers roughly this number of employment-based green cards in a 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?
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 e.g. Immigration violations (like overstaying a visa) are not crimes. Because it’s civil, people don’t get the same rights they would in criminal court such as a right to their own lawyer or a right to a jury, but they do have a right to a hearing and present evidence.
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 asylum case to be heard.
What is 4 to 4.5 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.
It's 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 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 serious enough to automatically trigger removal proceedings.
What is an aggravated felony?
To naturalize, most applicants must live in the U.S. as Permanent Residents for this many years.
What is five years?
(Three if married to a U.S. citizen.)
This is the difference between ICE and Border Patrol Agents.
Border Patrol enforces customs and immigration law at and near the border. ICE enforces customs and immigration laws at the border as well as in the INTERIOR of the United States.
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 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%?
No more than 7% of the combined total of employment-based and family-sponsored visas can go to natives of any one country in a given year. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouse, parent, child under 21) are exempt from this 7% cap.
This Temporary Status can be conferred for some of the following reasons: to seek medical treatment, visit a sick family member, attend the funeral of a deceased family member, or to escape crises in the country of origin. Typically lasts 1–2 years.
What is Humanitarian Parole?
Humanitarian Parole is different from TPS; Temporary Protected Status, which is a legal immigration status granted to people already in the U.S. when their home country is unsafe due to war, natural disaster, or crisis. HP gives permission to enter temporarily. TPS gives protection from deportation + work authorization.
This is the name for the process that allows an undocumented individual to be deported without seeing an immigration judge, usually without hours.
What is Expedited Removal?
However under CAT (UN Convention Against Torture); a treaty the U.S. signed, the U.S. cannot deport someone to a country where they are “more likely than not” (meaning more than 50% chance) to be tortured. It protects anyone — regardless of immigration status including undocumented people and people with criminal convictions.
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?
For some immigrants going through the legal immigration process such as through employment or family, this is how many years or more they could be stuck waiting for a green card — depending on their country of origin and visa category.
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.