Family Based Immigration

The Immigration and Nationality Act allows for the immigration of foreigners to the United States based on relationship to a US citizen or legal permanent resident. The purpose of this is to re-unite family members in the United States. If the United States citizen does not plan to live in the United States, he/she cannot request a visa for other family members.
 
Family-based immigration falls under two basic categories:

Unlimited Family-Based

• Spouse, widow(er), unmarried children under 21 and parents of a US citizen who is 21 or older.

Limited Family-Based

• Adult unmarried sons/ daughters (over age 21) of a US citizen and their minor children.
• Spouses, minor children and unmarried sons/ daughters (over age 21) of lawful permanent residents.
• Married sons and daughters of US citizens and their spouses and minor children.
• Brothers and sisters of a United States citizen and their spouses and minor children provided the US citizen is at least 21 years of age.

Men or women traveling to the US to marry a US citizen (Fiancee Visas: K1)

Employment Based Immigrant Visas

The Immigration and Nationality Act provides a yearly limit of 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas, which are divided into five preference categories. They usually require a labor certification from the US Department of Labor (DOL) and the filing of a petition with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).  
 
One of the benefits for Locally Employed Staff (LES) working for the U.S. government is the opportunity to immigrate to the United States with a Special Immigrant Visa.  Please see Special Immigrant Visa information for details. 

For more information on Employment Based Immigrant Visas, please click here.

Diversity Visas 

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements.  Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. 

The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the past five years.  Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

For more information on Diversity Visas, please click here.