Report: Most Immigrants Obtain a Green Card Through Family

Because Congress has capped the number of employment-sponsored green cards at 140,000 per year (about 13% of the total), the majority of immigrants in the United States obtain their green cards based on a family relationship.

This is even true for immigrants from China and India, in part because of country-specific caps that further constrain employment-based immigration from large nations. As of now, many more Chinese and Indian nationals obtain green cards through joint family sponsors, compared with employer sponsors.

In fact, South Korea is the only major country whose employer-sponsored immigrants to the United States outnumber family-sponsored immigrants. Even then, it’s worth noting that roughly half of the employer-sponsored immigrants are actually spouses and children of the primary worker.