6 ms·

The insanely confusing path to legal immigration, in one chart

54 points by bhauer 14y ago

ComputerGuru 14y ago
In some states, there is no point to legal immigration any more :) Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn just signed a law (with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's backing) giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses and car insurance.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  This has nothing to do with immigration legal or otherwise. You are better off providing insurance to the illegals.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  I like driving on roads when other drivers have car insurance. It lowers my rates, and in the event of an accident for which the other driver is liable I get money to fix my car. Surely we can come up with a less brain-dead way of encouraging immigrants to participate in the legal process than intentionally making our own roads less safe? Perhaps by making that process simpler, with more tangible benefit for those taking part. The changes you cite are an example of that. This "War on Immigration" crap is motivated by armament and prison suppliers.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- mdkess 14y ago
  There will always be illegal immigrants. Do you know what happens when you exclude a group of people from using the legal system? They create their own. If illegal immigrants can't get car insurance, they drive without car insurance. If they can't go to the police without the risk of getting their family deported, accidents turn into hit and runs. And when people can't go to the police, they turn to less reputable people for protection. Do you think that this is preferable?
- VLM 14y ago
  Three of the replies so far have assumed an anti-immigrant dog whistle was sounded. I'm not of the same opinion. If you can get to Chicago, as an illegal you basically have the same life as a legal, except you need to live cleaner than your average citizen so as not to get deported. Job, no problem, nobody cares if you're an illegal, employers actually like it. Car? Now no problem. Own land? Sure. Medical care? Not any worse than a citizen. The insight is I'm quite certain I could not walk north into Canada and do the same. Simply read what he wrote dispassionately without hearing imaginary dog whistles and its basically literally correct, there is little point in legal immigration for many people. Now if that's good or bad, is where the psuedo-political sloganeering begins.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    "ComputerGuru" is welcome to clarify, but I'm pretty sure I heard what was said. The USA does poorly in comparison with Canada with respect to open immigration, so you'll have to clarify your "insight" as well. Knowing is half the battle: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/immigration http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/im... There are still some benefits that are open to legal residents but not undocumented immigrants. These include educational opportunities, many jobs (sure a cleaning service is happy to hire undocumented but a licensed daycare center, not so much), many entitlements (immigrants with fake Social Security numbers pay in but they'll never get anything out), etc.
jack-r-abbit 14y ago
I don't find that insanely confusing at all. The flow chart asks simple questions like "Do you have a job opportunity?" and "Do you have a family member in the US?" Sure the process might take a long time but many of those steps can be navigated just by reading the questions and following the yes/no paths to the next question. It looks complicated because of the many boxes in succession but most of those boxes are just informational and could have been combined into one single box of information. I don't know if the creators of this flow chart had an agenda to make it look really complicated to push reform or what.
- TallGuyShort 14y ago
  If only providing the answers to these questions was as simple as reading through the image and saying "yes" or "no". In actual fact, the process of satisfying them of the answer and getting them to record that properly and consistently for the next person is incredibly frustrating. edit: I've been through it myself. "Insanely confusing" is spot-on accurate - the process of answering each question on this graph is confusing in and of itself.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    "The Really Hard Path" or "The Incredibly Long Path" sure... but not "The Insanely Confusing Path", IMO.
    - kyro 14y ago
      What's your opinion based on?
      - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
        My opinion is based on that flow chart. It looks like it might be a bit time consuming and contain difficult steps. but it does not look confusing. I am not confused. In my opinion, it is not confusing... certainly not "insanely confusing."
jtreminio 14y ago
I came to the country illegally with my mother, as she fled the effects of the Nicaraguan civil war (Iran/Contra related), when I was 3 years old. We jumped back and forth between Texas and Mexico 3 times. I like to say I'm 4 times illegal (Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, USA) and then kept doing it afterward. In the early 2000's we were granted amnesty as part of a larger Nicaraguan-focused program. We'd been here for ~20 years. No way to proceed other than living in the shadows. Anything to help people better themselves, I'm all for it!
peelle 14y ago
That chart isn't really that insane. There are many ways to legally immigrate, and it just lumped most of them all together. Refugee status is missing. This is just a Top Level Design Doc. Most people are gonna answer the first question or two and then zoom in. The process itself is tedious and can cost, but I think it is worth it. I went through it helping my wife get her green card a few years ago. I know many people who just didn't want to deal with the process and hired a lawyer to do it for them.
manaskarekar 14y ago
Direct link to the pdf - http://immigrationroad.com/green-card/immigration-flowchart-roadmap-to-green-card.pdf http://immigrationroad.com/green-card/immigration-flowchart-...
Nux 14y ago
I think unrestricted travel on the planet should be a basic human right. There is something seriously wrong with someone telling another person he/she must not move from a certain place.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  Amen.
- rb2k_ 14y ago
  At least in Germany, one of the considerations is that we provide a good amount of financial benefits. So while people moving over here probably wouldn't be that big of a problem, extending those benefits to people that never paid in would. On the other hand we also can't NOT pay them seeing as our constitutions first article is about the state protecting human dignity. This includes not living on the street or starving. That being said, the EU introduced the free movement of labor, so it's going at least in the right direction :)
  - Nux 14y ago
    Yes, state organisation seems to be conflicting with the idea of free travel as a basic human right. The free movement of labour, too, is not quite there yet, either, but as you said, at least the direction seems ok.
- dougk16 14y ago
  The thing that surprised me when I recently renewed my password was reading some fine print that said you can't even legally leave the U.S without a passport. Like I'm a prisoner here unless I have that piece of paper. I can understand requiring a passport before getting on an international flight or something, just as a practical matter, but the legal speak there somehow rubs me wrong. Unless there's more fine print to amend that fine print.
  - bcoates 14y ago
    I think the fine print is that short of a small list of exceptions US nationals are legally entitled to a passport. It's all symbolic anyway, given the broad economic dependence on the ability to anonymously cross US borders.
dougk16 14y ago
If you're going the marriage route, it's not that bad. My wife and I did it without a lawyer despite every source out there telling you that you're crazy to do that (probably written by lawyers). Don't get me wrong, the process is a horrible pain in the ass and needs vast reforms, but it's not much more painful than a complex tax return. If you go the lawyer route, I imagine it's pretty smooth sailing.
- peacemaker 14y ago
  Not sure what happened by my comment below was supposed to be a direct reply to this comment
criveros 14y ago
What if I am a Canadian new grad student wanting to move to the US? I did not see nothing about TN visas on that chart.
- yarek 14y ago
  TN visa cannot be used to start the immigration process. You have to convert to H1B or L1 visa, etc.
  - rll 14y ago
    Which isn't that bad. If your company is keen on having you stick around they can do the TN1->H1B->Greencard juggle in under a year. Otherwise, just sticking with your TN really isn't that different from being on a Greencard. Yes, you have to renew it yearly and the immigration folks can be surly about it, but you pay your $50 fee and you get another year. I did it for 10+ years without issues.
    - mahyarm 14y ago
      Now it's every 3 years.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    I've talked to people who've done it, but you can't leave the country when you start the process. It's better to use an H1/L1/etc. As a Canadian, I wouldn't really suggest US citizenship although.
  - Sukotto 14y ago
    Not true: http://www.grasmick.com/canimfaq.htm#IF%20I%20FILE%20MY http://www.grasmick.com/canimfaq.htm#IF%20I%20FILE%20MY As an aside, I think TN status is great if you can get it. The only real problem is that you lose it as soon as you step off of US soil and have to re-apply when you try to re-enter. This makes for increasingly stressful trips home to Canada (or Mexico) since the longer you are in the US, the less likely you'll be given a new one when you return. Granting the TN is totally arbitrary and depends on the mood of the border agent and the quality of your paperwork. Make absolutely sure your job title and description is identical to one of the TN-permitted ones. Lawyer-up if necessary. The cost of getting lawyer to prepare you is more than offset by the increased salary available in the US.
peacemaker 14y ago
I became a resident by following one of the simpler paths on this chart. Coming to the country on vacation with my American wife, deciding to stay and filing the I-485 (plus about $2000 in fees) and waiting for green card. The whole process took about 5 months and included a visit to an office where they take your fingerprints and ID, a separate visit to a designated doctors to have a full medical and then a trip to a large city for an interview with the immigration officer. For the interview my wife any I were the only ones in the waiting room without a lawyer or large binder full of supporting documents to prove our marriage. We just had a 5 minute chat with the officer which went quite naturally and he approved us right there. 7 days later a green card arrived in the post. I tell my story to give a real example of immigrating here. I'm from one of the US 'allies' countries, no bad history, good job etc. When I look back now it didn't seem so bad but at the time there was a lot of stress and expense and that's just for one of the 'easier' paths.
- gavinlynch 14y ago
  I love to hear a story of successful American immigration. Thanks for sharing!
foobar2k 14y ago
This diagram misses out a ton of other immigration routes, including the O1 visa (aliens of extraordinary ability, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa).
- Cacti 14y ago
  This is better: http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf
bpolania 14y ago
I like the charts but they doesn't seem to include the L-1 Visa path. Anyway it seems to me that this new reform rewards illegal immigration and doesn't do much to improve the chances of those applying for green cards through regular channels. Also the travel restrictions for those with L-1 visas need to be reviewed, it doesn't makes sense that one you're approved with a L-1 visa in the US you need to go through another approval process in your home country if you want to travel outside the US.
- otoburb 14y ago
  They attempt to address the L-1A & B visa path on the right side where they ask "Working on H1, L1, etc". Admittedly, the chart doesn't include the extra step of having to qualify for an L-1. At least for the L-1A, you'd need to have worked for a subsidiary for 1 year before being granted the visa. The good news is that once you have the L1, then you can follow the EB1 or EB2 paths on the far left hand side.
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
A combination of high demand + strong incentive to keep access at a strictly controlled low level = this. I made it all the way to the green square at the bottom, following a long path along the left-hand edge. The process is a mind-boggling Rude Goldberg Machine governed by arcane and seemingly arbitrary rules riddled with exceptions. Having an excellent lawyer is both helpful (obviously) and depressing (in that it reveals just how many hidden controls are embedded within). The worst part is the long wait time when you have absolutely no say in the outcome, basically at the mercy of a remote faceless bureaucracy that can decide your fate and enforce it.
- charonn0 14y ago
  >at the mercy of a remote faceless bureaucracy that can decide your fate and enforce it. Welcome to the American-style of governance. Please see the DMV for your drivers license and then stop by the IRS to try your luck at the tax code. You will need documentation for everything. The appeals process exists, but is largely pro forma. If you comply successfully enough you might even get to join a homeowners association one day.
thetrb 14y ago
I got a green card through the diversity visa program. The process itself really wasn't that complicated. Sure, a lot of forms to fill out and the overall process took about 1 year, but I never was at a point where simple internet research didn't answer my questions.
bane 14y ago
My wife is an immigrant. Her path to citizenship took about 8 years and an extraordinary amount of time filling out paperwork, refilling it out, submitting it, waiting months at a time while "something" happened with it (of course with no way of status checking the progress of it). At the time, there was almost no "instruction manual" you could use. You simply went to www.ins.gov and started downloading PDF files and filling them out. You filled out anything that seemed even remotely relevant because you didn't want to show up missing something (more on that later). Here's some of my recollection of it: I remember spending many 5am mornings standing in a line outside the immigration office with my wife, only for the daily quota of people allowed in to max out and not be able to get in the building. More infuriating is that people who made it in the previous day were given paperwork to let them jump the line. If you made it in, you simply stood in another line, so long that it wrapped around the lobby, and then up into the emergency exit stairs, then wrapped around the next floor then back into the stairs until you made it into the waiting area -- this was usually around noon. If you left the line for any reason (since 5am!) for food, bathroom, anything, you lost your place. Here you were met bruskly by a security guard who spoke rapid slang to all of the immigrants and she spot checked the paperwork. If anything seemed incorrect or they couldn't answer her questions (which even I had a hard time understanding) they were kicked out of line). A second desk of immigration officers then fielded complaints in the 20 or 30 languages of the people who were kicked out after waiting 7 hours but it mostly served as a place the officers could take a break and watch TV. If you made it past that gauntlet you took a number and had to sit on the floor since the waiting area had at least 2 times as many people in it as it was designed to hold. Every 20 or 30 minutes a security guard would walk around and force people to stand up yelling "no sitting on the floor!". But after 7-8 hours of standing there weren't many people who followed that. Most likely, after watching the call numbers for a few hours (and seeing only one or two windows actually providing service), they'd shut down for the day and you'd get a raincheck with a day to come back (where you could then jump the morning line and get directly into the waiting room). After returning on your raincheck, and waiting a few hours more, you finally get up to a window, only to find out that either: a) you brought the wrong, but incredibly similar, documentation (you filled out the relative sponsorship rather than the spousal or some such) b) you brought the correct documentation, but they no longer accept that revision of the form. There is, in fact, an older version of the form that you didn't fill out because you figured the newer one would be more correct, but that's the only one they accept (and later when you return you find out that either they've reverted back to the new form, or you didn't fill out the addendum PDF you didn't know about that makes up for the gap in information that the new form was supposed to remedy c) they simply don't like how you filled it out, you could return on another day, see a different immigration officer and have them accept the paperwork right off the bat d) some of the required documents simply don't exist in the immigrants country of origin and they won't accept the equivalent (for example, my wife's native country doesn't use birth certificates) d) you did everything well enough for the person working the window that day that they accept it. If you are lucky you are at the part of the process where you get a verification serial number of some sort that you are supposed to be able to use for them to look up your case for status checks etc. Bear in mind that quite often the pile of papers you just gave the officer has the only existing copy of some of the legal documents, many of which are irreplaceable or extremely expensive and time consuming to replace. You are supposed to get these back at some point. In the meantime these documents are now unavailable for anything else that might require them. In our case this mean lost jobs and tens of thousands of dollars in lost wages. The receiving officer unceremoniously dumps this precious cargo into a bin with a huge mishmash of other odds and ends. It could be a trash can or it could be the proper receiving bin, who knows? They assure you that by law processing this step must take n-days. At n+180 days you start to panic. Calls to the number they gave you result in several hours of on hold time only to be told that they can't provide you with a status update. At n+270 days they call you back because of a problem with your documentation. You go through the drill described above, usually taking one to two days of waiting in line to be told that a) they can't find your file so you'll have to redo all of the documentation again (but those original one of a kind documents!). Don't worry, they assure you, they'll turn up. b) they couldn't verify the address for her sister or some such nonsense, who of course has moved sometime in the previous 11 months, or god forbid a relative drop dead and you have to figure out how to get a death certificate into your file. Either way, you'll have to spend yet another day or two standing in line. Eventually...and this is back when they did work permits for green card applicants...you'll get a flimsy hand glued id card for whatever it was you were applying for. My wife had to go through the process 3 times on work permits, each time with the INS missing their legal response date by months, before finally getting called in for our green card interview. Here, because up to this point you've received virtually no communication whatsoever from immigration, you do what everybody does, pile various artifacts from your life together, and memorize each other's toothbrush colors, where you then go and wait in line, only now with a box of stuff that'll have trouble making it through security, for a day or two. At the end you find you that it's not actually the interview day, this is the day they need you there to schedule the interview. You return months later. In the meantime you get a letter that the medical checkup has expired since the process is taking so long, and your wife needs to go get another expensive checkup from one of two carefully selected doctors that the INS uses. This results in a multi-week position on a waiting list, only now you find out that your green card interview is happening before the doctor's appointment. In a blind panic you make dozens of phone calls trying to sort this out to no avail - but it doesn't matter anyhow, because what nobody tells you is that it doesn't matter, after the interview you can just submit the new checkup with an addendum form they won't tell you about. But you find this out much later. There's no appeals process too which makes all this fun, so when immigration screws something up (they will) you have effectively no resort. You just hope they don't fuck anything up too badly. Finally, after waiting in line for another few hours, you make the interview, where the officer looks at you and your wife says, "I believe you're married" (so you didn't have to bring anything at all anyways, you've just been lugging around 40 pounds of mementos for 4 days for no reason). Now repeat the above nightmare for the citizenship application and you can see why it's so hard to legally immigrate. Oh, and suppose my wife's friend wants to immigrate, but has no current job applying for her visa status and no relatives (she'll be the first generation ever in the U.S.). How does she get in? She doesn't! There simply is no path to immigration for this person. Sure she has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology or some such, but immigrating here and then looking for a job is simply not possible. edit this was in 2001, I've heard the process has been improved greatly since then, our finally few visits for citizenship were smooth sailing in comparison to our early experiences
Sukotto 14y ago
The image looks like an uncredited reprint from this 2009 posting on ImmigrationRoad [1] which has a large version one can actually read. The pdf deeplinked to at the bottom is from this Reason blog post [2] (which just adds some attribution, no extra info) [1] http://immigrationroad.com/blog/immigration-flowchart-a-roadmap-to-green-card/ http://immigrationroad.com/blog/immigration-flowchart-a-road... [2] http://reason.com/blog/2008/09/24/new-at-reason-mike-flynn-shikh http://reason.com/blog/2008/09/24/new-at-reason-mike-flynn-s...
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Shorter route: Enlist, serve. Citizen in what, 9 weeks?

54 points by bhauer 14y ago

In some states, there is no point to legal immigration any more :) Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn just signed a law (with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's backing) giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses and car insurance.

webwanderings 14y ago
This has nothing to do with immigration legal or otherwise. You are better off providing insurance to the illegals.
jessaustin 14y ago
I like driving on roads when other drivers have car insurance. It lowers my rates, and in the event of an accident for which the other driver is liable I get money to fix my car. Surely we can come up with a less brain-dead way of encouraging immigrants to participate in the legal process than intentionally making our own roads less safe? Perhaps by making that process simpler, with more tangible benefit for those taking part. The changes you cite are an example of that. This "War on Immigration" crap is motivated by armament and prison suppliers.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
mdkess 14y ago
There will always be illegal immigrants. Do you know what happens when you exclude a group of people from using the legal system? They create their own. If illegal immigrants can't get car insurance, they drive without car insurance. If they can't go to the police without the risk of getting their family deported, accidents turn into hit and runs. And when people can't go to the police, they turn to less reputable people for protection. Do you think that this is preferable?
VLM 14y ago
Three of the replies so far have assumed an anti-immigrant dog whistle was sounded. I'm not of the same opinion. If you can get to Chicago, as an illegal you basically have the same life as a legal, except you need to live cleaner than your average citizen so as not to get deported. Job, no problem, nobody cares if you're an illegal, employers actually like it. Car? Now no problem. Own land? Sure. Medical care? Not any worse than a citizen. The insight is I'm quite certain I could not walk north into Canada and do the same. Simply read what he wrote dispassionately without hearing imaginary dog whistles and its basically literally correct, there is little point in legal immigration for many people. Now if that's good or bad, is where the psuedo-political sloganeering begins.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  "ComputerGuru" is welcome to clarify, but I'm pretty sure I heard what was said. The USA does poorly in comparison with Canada with respect to open immigration, so you'll have to clarify your "insight" as well. Knowing is half the battle: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/immigration http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/im... There are still some benefits that are open to legal residents but not undocumented immigrants. These include educational opportunities, many jobs (sure a cleaning service is happy to hire undocumented but a licensed daycare center, not so much), many entitlements (immigrants with fake Social Security numbers pay in but they'll never get anything out), etc.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago

I don't find that insanely confusing at all. The flow chart asks simple questions like "Do you have a job opportunity?" and "Do you have a family member in the US?" Sure the process might take a long time but many of those steps can be navigated just by reading the questions and following the yes/no paths to the next question. It looks complicated because of the many boxes in succession but most of those boxes are just informational and could have been combined into one single box of information. I don't know if the creators of this flow chart had an agenda to make it look really complicated to push reform or what.

TallGuyShort 14y ago
If only providing the answers to these questions was as simple as reading through the image and saying "yes" or "no". In actual fact, the process of satisfying them of the answer and getting them to record that properly and consistently for the next person is incredibly frustrating. edit: I've been through it myself. "Insanely confusing" is spot-on accurate - the process of answering each question on this graph is confusing in and of itself.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  "The Really Hard Path" or "The Incredibly Long Path" sure... but not "The Insanely Confusing Path", IMO.
  - kyro 14y ago
    What's your opinion based on?
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      My opinion is based on that flow chart. It looks like it might be a bit time consuming and contain difficult steps. but it does not look confusing. I am not confused. In my opinion, it is not confusing... certainly not "insanely confusing."

jtreminio 14y ago

I came to the country illegally with my mother, as she fled the effects of the Nicaraguan civil war (Iran/Contra related), when I was 3 years old. We jumped back and forth between Texas and Mexico 3 times. I like to say I'm 4 times illegal (Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, USA) and then kept doing it afterward. In the early 2000's we were granted amnesty as part of a larger Nicaraguan-focused program. We'd been here for ~20 years. No way to proceed other than living in the shadows. Anything to help people better themselves, I'm all for it!

peelle 14y ago

That chart isn't really that insane. There are many ways to legally immigrate, and it just lumped most of them all together. Refugee status is missing. This is just a Top Level Design Doc. Most people are gonna answer the first question or two and then zoom in. The process itself is tedious and can cost, but I think it is worth it. I went through it helping my wife get her green card a few years ago. I know many people who just didn't want to deal with the process and hired a lawyer to do it for them.

manaskarekar 14y ago

Direct link to the pdf - http://immigrationroad.com/green-card/immigration-flowchart-roadmap-to-green-card.pdf http://immigrationroad.com/green-card/immigration-flowchart-...

Nux 14y ago

I think unrestricted travel on the planet should be a basic human right. There is something seriously wrong with someone telling another person he/she must not move from a certain place.

webwanderings 14y ago
Amen.
rb2k_ 14y ago
At least in Germany, one of the considerations is that we provide a good amount of financial benefits. So while people moving over here probably wouldn't be that big of a problem, extending those benefits to people that never paid in would. On the other hand we also can't NOT pay them seeing as our constitutions first article is about the state protecting human dignity. This includes not living on the street or starving. That being said, the EU introduced the free movement of labor, so it's going at least in the right direction :)
- Nux 14y ago
  Yes, state organisation seems to be conflicting with the idea of free travel as a basic human right. The free movement of labour, too, is not quite there yet, either, but as you said, at least the direction seems ok.
dougk16 14y ago
The thing that surprised me when I recently renewed my password was reading some fine print that said you can't even legally leave the U.S without a passport. Like I'm a prisoner here unless I have that piece of paper. I can understand requiring a passport before getting on an international flight or something, just as a practical matter, but the legal speak there somehow rubs me wrong. Unless there's more fine print to amend that fine print.
- bcoates 14y ago
  I think the fine print is that short of a small list of exceptions US nationals are legally entitled to a passport. It's all symbolic anyway, given the broad economic dependence on the ability to anonymously cross US borders.

dougk16 14y ago

If you're going the marriage route, it's not that bad. My wife and I did it without a lawyer despite every source out there telling you that you're crazy to do that (probably written by lawyers). Don't get me wrong, the process is a horrible pain in the ass and needs vast reforms, but it's not much more painful than a complex tax return. If you go the lawyer route, I imagine it's pretty smooth sailing.

peacemaker 14y ago
Not sure what happened by my comment below was supposed to be a direct reply to this comment

criveros 14y ago

What if I am a Canadian new grad student wanting to move to the US? I did not see nothing about TN visas on that chart.

yarek 14y ago
TN visa cannot be used to start the immigration process. You have to convert to H1B or L1 visa, etc.
- rll 14y ago
  Which isn't that bad. If your company is keen on having you stick around they can do the TN1->H1B->Greencard juggle in under a year. Otherwise, just sticking with your TN really isn't that different from being on a Greencard. Yes, you have to renew it yearly and the immigration folks can be surly about it, but you pay your $50 fee and you get another year. I did it for 10+ years without issues.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    Now it's every 3 years.
- mahyarm 14y ago
  I've talked to people who've done it, but you can't leave the country when you start the process. It's better to use an H1/L1/etc. As a Canadian, I wouldn't really suggest US citizenship although.
- Sukotto 14y ago
  Not true: http://www.grasmick.com/canimfaq.htm#IF%20I%20FILE%20MY http://www.grasmick.com/canimfaq.htm#IF%20I%20FILE%20MY As an aside, I think TN status is great if you can get it. The only real problem is that you lose it as soon as you step off of US soil and have to re-apply when you try to re-enter. This makes for increasingly stressful trips home to Canada (or Mexico) since the longer you are in the US, the less likely you'll be given a new one when you return. Granting the TN is totally arbitrary and depends on the mood of the border agent and the quality of your paperwork. Make absolutely sure your job title and description is identical to one of the TN-permitted ones. Lawyer-up if necessary. The cost of getting lawyer to prepare you is more than offset by the increased salary available in the US.

peacemaker 14y ago

I became a resident by following one of the simpler paths on this chart. Coming to the country on vacation with my American wife, deciding to stay and filing the I-485 (plus about $2000 in fees) and waiting for green card. The whole process took about 5 months and included a visit to an office where they take your fingerprints and ID, a separate visit to a designated doctors to have a full medical and then a trip to a large city for an interview with the immigration officer. For the interview my wife any I were the only ones in the waiting room without a lawyer or large binder full of supporting documents to prove our marriage. We just had a 5 minute chat with the officer which went quite naturally and he approved us right there. 7 days later a green card arrived in the post. I tell my story to give a real example of immigrating here. I'm from one of the US 'allies' countries, no bad history, good job etc. When I look back now it didn't seem so bad but at the time there was a lot of stress and expense and that's just for one of the 'easier' paths.

gavinlynch 14y ago
I love to hear a story of successful American immigration. Thanks for sharing!

foobar2k 14y ago

This diagram misses out a ton of other immigration routes, including the O1 visa (aliens of extraordinary ability, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_visa).

Cacti 14y ago
This is better: http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf

bpolania 14y ago

I like the charts but they doesn't seem to include the L-1 Visa path. Anyway it seems to me that this new reform rewards illegal immigration and doesn't do much to improve the chances of those applying for green cards through regular channels. Also the travel restrictions for those with L-1 visas need to be reviewed, it doesn't makes sense that one you're approved with a L-1 visa in the US you need to go through another approval process in your home country if you want to travel outside the US.

otoburb 14y ago
They attempt to address the L-1A & B visa path on the right side where they ask "Working on H1, L1, etc". Admittedly, the chart doesn't include the extra step of having to qualify for an L-1. At least for the L-1A, you'd need to have worked for a subsidiary for 1 year before being granted the visa. The good news is that once you have the L1, then you can follow the EB1 or EB2 paths on the far left hand side.

Florin_Andrei 14y ago

A combination of high demand + strong incentive to keep access at a strictly controlled low level = this. I made it all the way to the green square at the bottom, following a long path along the left-hand edge. The process is a mind-boggling Rude Goldberg Machine governed by arcane and seemingly arbitrary rules riddled with exceptions. Having an excellent lawyer is both helpful (obviously) and depressing (in that it reveals just how many hidden controls are embedded within). The worst part is the long wait time when you have absolutely no say in the outcome, basically at the mercy of a remote faceless bureaucracy that can decide your fate and enforce it.

charonn0 14y ago
>at the mercy of a remote faceless bureaucracy that can decide your fate and enforce it. Welcome to the American-style of governance. Please see the DMV for your drivers license and then stop by the IRS to try your luck at the tax code. You will need documentation for everything. The appeals process exists, but is largely pro forma. If you comply successfully enough you might even get to join a homeowners association one day.

thetrb 14y ago

I got a green card through the diversity visa program. The process itself really wasn't that complicated. Sure, a lot of forms to fill out and the overall process took about 1 year, but I never was at a point where simple internet research didn't answer my questions.

bane 14y ago

My wife is an immigrant. Her path to citizenship took about 8 years and an extraordinary amount of time filling out paperwork, refilling it out, submitting it, waiting months at a time while "something" happened with it (of course with no way of status checking the progress of it). At the time, there was almost no "instruction manual" you could use. You simply went to www.ins.gov and started downloading PDF files and filling them out. You filled out anything that seemed even remotely relevant because you didn't want to show up missing something (more on that later). Here's some of my recollection of it: I remember spending many 5am mornings standing in a line outside the immigration office with my wife, only for the daily quota of people allowed in to max out and not be able to get in the building. More infuriating is that people who made it in the previous day were given paperwork to let them jump the line. If you made it in, you simply stood in another line, so long that it wrapped around the lobby, and then up into the emergency exit stairs, then wrapped around the next floor then back into the stairs until you made it into the waiting area -- this was usually around noon. If you left the line for any reason (since 5am!) for food, bathroom, anything, you lost your place. Here you were met bruskly by a security guard who spoke rapid slang to all of the immigrants and she spot checked the paperwork. If anything seemed incorrect or they couldn't answer her questions (which even I had a hard time understanding) they were kicked out of line). A second desk of immigration officers then fielded complaints in the 20 or 30 languages of the people who were kicked out after waiting 7 hours but it mostly served as a place the officers could take a break and watch TV. If you made it past that gauntlet you took a number and had to sit on the floor since the waiting area had at least 2 times as many people in it as it was designed to hold. Every 20 or 30 minutes a security guard would walk around and force people to stand up yelling "no sitting on the floor!". But after 7-8 hours of standing there weren't many people who followed that. Most likely, after watching the call numbers for a few hours (and seeing only one or two windows actually providing service), they'd shut down for the day and you'd get a raincheck with a day to come back (where you could then jump the morning line and get directly into the waiting room). After returning on your raincheck, and waiting a few hours more, you finally get up to a window, only to find out that either: a) you brought the wrong, but incredibly similar, documentation (you filled out the relative sponsorship rather than the spousal or some such) b) you brought the correct documentation, but they no longer accept that revision of the form. There is, in fact, an older version of the form that you didn't fill out because you figured the newer one would be more correct, but that's the only one they accept (and later when you return you find out that either they've reverted back to the new form, or you didn't fill out the addendum PDF you didn't know about that makes up for the gap in information that the new form was supposed to remedy c) they simply don't like how you filled it out, you could return on another day, see a different immigration officer and have them accept the paperwork right off the bat d) some of the required documents simply don't exist in the immigrants country of origin and they won't accept the equivalent (for example, my wife's native country doesn't use birth certificates) d) you did everything well enough for the person working the window that day that they accept it. If you are lucky you are at the part of the process where you get a verification serial number of some sort that you are supposed to be able to use for them to look up your case for status checks etc. Bear in mind that quite often the pile of papers you just gave the officer has the only existing copy of some of the legal documents, many of which are irreplaceable or extremely expensive and time consuming to replace. You are supposed to get these back at some point. In the meantime these documents are now unavailable for anything else that might require them. In our case this mean lost jobs and tens of thousands of dollars in lost wages. The receiving officer unceremoniously dumps this precious cargo into a bin with a huge mishmash of other odds and ends. It could be a trash can or it could be the proper receiving bin, who knows? They assure you that by law processing this step must take n-days. At n+180 days you start to panic. Calls to the number they gave you result in several hours of on hold time only to be told that they can't provide you with a status update. At n+270 days they call you back because of a problem with your documentation. You go through the drill described above, usually taking one to two days of waiting in line to be told that a) they can't find your file so you'll have to redo all of the documentation again (but those original one of a kind documents!). Don't worry, they assure you, they'll turn up. b) they couldn't verify the address for her sister or some such nonsense, who of course has moved sometime in the previous 11 months, or god forbid a relative drop dead and you have to figure out how to get a death certificate into your file. Either way, you'll have to spend yet another day or two standing in line. Eventually...and this is back when they did work permits for green card applicants...you'll get a flimsy hand glued id card for whatever it was you were applying for. My wife had to go through the process 3 times on work permits, each time with the INS missing their legal response date by months, before finally getting called in for our green card interview. Here, because up to this point you've received virtually no communication whatsoever from immigration, you do what everybody does, pile various artifacts from your life together, and memorize each other's toothbrush colors, where you then go and wait in line, only now with a box of stuff that'll have trouble making it through security, for a day or two. At the end you find you that it's not actually the interview day, this is the day they need you there to schedule the interview. You return months later. In the meantime you get a letter that the medical checkup has expired since the process is taking so long, and your wife needs to go get another expensive checkup from one of two carefully selected doctors that the INS uses. This results in a multi-week position on a waiting list, only now you find out that your green card interview is happening before the doctor's appointment. In a blind panic you make dozens of phone calls trying to sort this out to no avail - but it doesn't matter anyhow, because what nobody tells you is that it doesn't matter, after the interview you can just submit the new checkup with an addendum form they won't tell you about. But you find this out much later. There's no appeals process too which makes all this fun, so when immigration screws something up (they will) you have effectively no resort. You just hope they don't fuck anything up too badly. Finally, after waiting in line for another few hours, you make the interview, where the officer looks at you and your wife says, "I believe you're married" (so you didn't have to bring anything at all anyways, you've just been lugging around 40 pounds of mementos for 4 days for no reason). Now repeat the above nightmare for the citizenship application and you can see why it's so hard to legally immigrate. Oh, and suppose my wife's friend wants to immigrate, but has no current job applying for her visa status and no relatives (she'll be the first generation ever in the U.S.). How does she get in? She doesn't! There simply is no path to immigration for this person. Sure she has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology or some such, but immigrating here and then looking for a job is simply not possible. edit this was in 2001, I've heard the process has been improved greatly since then, our finally few visits for citizenship were smooth sailing in comparison to our early experiences

Sukotto 14y ago

The image looks like an uncredited reprint from this 2009 posting on ImmigrationRoad [1] which has a large version one can actually read. The pdf deeplinked to at the bottom is from this Reason blog post [2] (which just adds some attribution, no extra info) [1] http://immigrationroad.com/blog/immigration-flowchart-a-roadmap-to-green-card/ http://immigrationroad.com/blog/immigration-flowchart-a-road... [2] http://reason.com/blog/2008/09/24/new-at-reason-mike-flynn-shikh http://reason.com/blog/2008/09/24/new-at-reason-mike-flynn-s...

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Shorter route: Enlist, serve. Citizen in what, 9 weeks?