Right or wrong, fair or not, these hurdles are in place because of economic migration. People want to move to richer countries where even menial jobs pay much

Right or wrong, fair or not, these hurdles are in place because of economic migration. People want to move to richer countries where even menial jobs pay much much more than their home countries, and they can enjoy more advanced infrastructure that's been built up over generations. Quite often money is then sent 'back home'. People moving the other way (west to developing nation) often bring skills or plenty of savings with them. That's not always true in both cases of course (plenty of skilled doctors want to move to the west, plenty of unemployed drunks from the west want to move somewhere cheaper, etc). In this case, already having some family living in the country must be a red flag that the applicant might easily find a job and a support network and then petition to stay. The whole thing sucks and is unfair, but there it is. One day hopefully we will not need national borders, but it is not this day.