Employment Based
There are five categories for Employment Based immigrant visa petitions (1) Priority Workers; (2) Immigrants with Advanced Degrees; (3) Professional/Skilled and Unskilled Workers; (4) Special Immigrants; and (5) Employment Creation Immigrants, which receive a total of 140,000 visas per fiscal year. Since IMMACT90 was implemented, there has not been much concern over the quota bulletin and visa availability except for those countries with particularly heavy demands (i.e., People's Republic of China, India and the Philippines).

Quota Bulletin

Family Based
Family reunification has traditionally been the United States Congress' foremost consideration in the promulgation of our immigration laws. This is reflected in the visa allocation system and in the various forms of relief available to certain aliens based on their family relationship to citizens or to lawful permanent residents of the United States.

You can qualify for permanent residency if you have a family member in the United States who is either a citizen or a holder of a green card. There are three basic categories that an individual must fall into to qualify for permanent residency through a relative. Specifically, these are:

1. Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens: In order to qualify for permanent residency as an immediate relative, you must be a spouse of a U.S. citizen, an unmarried child (under the age of 21) of a U.S. Citizen parent, or a parent of a U.S. citizen child who is over the age of 21 (note: there are no quota restrictions on this category).
   
   
2. Preference Relatives of U.S. Citizens or green card holders: In order to qualify under the preference categories, an person must qualify in one of four (4) categories described below:
   
   
   1. Family-based First Preference: Unmarried people of any age who have a U.S. Citizen parent;
   2. Family-based Second Preference: Spouses of permanent residents and unmarried children of any age who have a parent who holds green card;
   3. Family-based Third Preference: Married children of U.S. Citizen parents;
   4. Family-based Fourth Preference: Sisters and Brothers (note: these siblings must be over 21 years of age) of U.S. Citizens.
   
   
   
3. Accompanying relatives of individuals who have established a preference category: If an individual obtains permanent residency through one of the above listed preference categories, he/she can have their spouse and unmarried children under the age of 21 immigrate immediately with them.

Like the Employment-based categories, both Preference Relatives and Accompanying relatives are affected by quota restrictions. You will need to determine if the quota backlogs will have an impact on your case prior to filing with the government.

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