Family-Based Immigration: Overview

Introduction

Throughout the history of the United States, family relationships have played a key role in immigration. Modern US immigration policy is primarily based upon the Immigration and Nationality Acts (INA) of 1952, 1965, and 1990. Under this system, current citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who hold green cards can sponsor relatives to obtain immigration visas. By the early 2020s, the US typically admitted roughly one million immigrants per year, and about two-thirds of those were admitted under the family-based system. (The remainder of each year’s immigrants comprise refugees and asylees; people admitted through the Diversity Visa Lottery, which randomly selects qualified applicants from many countries; and people who come to the US for employment.) However, like other aspects of immigration to the US, family-based immigration has generated significant debate.

Opponents of the family-based system see it as detrimental because it admits low-skilled workers and believe it allows current citizens and LPRs to bring unlimited relatives to the country—which, they argue, strains social welfare programs and can increase crime, including the risk of terrorist attacks. Some prominent figures, notably including President Donald Trump, have proposed altering US policy to more closely resemble policy in Australia and Canada, which employ merit-based systems that give preference to applicants based on education, employment qualifications, and English-language ability. Proponents of family-based immigration policy, meanwhile, suggest that migrants sponsored by family members help the country economically and contend that changing the policy might deter highly skilled immigrants from moving to the US as well.

US immigration policy historically has been highly responsive to social and economic factors as well as considerations about the United States’ image in the global community. Discussions of immigration policy continued to bring up questions of who is being excluded and why. Therefore, at the heart of the debate over family-based immigration versus merit-based immigration remained ideas about the economy, American competitiveness, fairness, and American values.

Understanding the Discussion

Chain migration: A family-based immigration system as laid out by the Immigration and Nationality Act, under which US citizens or lawful permanent residents can sponsor the immigration of family members. Originally coined as a neutral academic term, it has come to be used derisively by opponents.

Lawful permanent residents (LPR): Immigrants who have not yet become citizens but who have permission to live and work in the US on a permanent basis; sometimes referred to as “green card holders” because of the identification cards issued to them.

Merit-based immigration system: Also sometimes referred to as a “skill-based” or “employment-based” immigration system; a system of immigration that gives preference to applicants with education, skills, or other qualifications and that often requires a certain number of points, which are awarded for the above criteria, high-paying job offers, or high levels of capital investment that are expected to contribute to the economy.

Visa: A legal document that allows a person to enter and visit or live in but not necessarily work in a country. US visas come in different types, such as visitor, student, guest-worker, and immigrant.

History

Throughout US history, immigration policy has shifted in response to social and economic factors. One policy, however, has remained constant since a Supreme Court decision in 1849: the federal government, not the states, regulates immigration.

At times, policies were enacted in response to prejudice against certain ethnic groups. For instance, the government responded to an influx of Chinese workers during the California gold rush with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned laborers from China but allowed tourists, students, scholars, and merchants. The Immigration Act of 1917 expanded Asian exclusion by defining an Asiatic Barred Zone, which encompassed much of Asia, the Pacific islands, and some parts of the Middle East. The prohibition on Chinese immigrants was not lifted until the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943. The repeal had little effect, however, since China’s immigration quota was set at just 105 people. Further, the repeal did not extend to other countries in the Asiatic Barred Zone. There were only occasional exceptions to the ban, including some refugees and family members.

Ethnic exclusion became more complex during the next phase of immigration legislation. The Immigration Act of 1917 required a literacy test for all immigrants. The test was meant to exclude immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, although that was not the effect. The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson-Reed Act, reinforced the system of preferential treatment for some groups of immigrants because it established quotas for immigration from different countries. Some quotas, such as those for Italy and Eastern Europe, were set very low, while quotas for countries in northwestern Europe, such as Germany, were set higher.

In the Cold War years following World War II, immigration policy remained much the same, retaining national quotas. The Immigration Act of 1952, or McCarran-Walter Act, allocated approximately 85 percent of immigration slots to immigrants from northern and western Europe while allowing few immigrants from Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. Congress, not the president, defined immigration policy in the first half of the twentieth century. Presidents who opposed Congress over Asian exclusion, for instance, faced backlash. Diplomatic interests were the primary rationale for opening US borders. Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower argued that allowing immigrants from certain countries would improve US political relationships with those countries.

President John F. Kennedy tried to liberalize immigration policy, but it was his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, who enacted reforms with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, or Hart-Celler Act. This act prioritized family ties, job skills, and refugees, rather than setting strict national quotas that favored particular countries. The effect of the 1965 legislation was that the numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America skyrocketed, soon outnumbering immigrants from Europe. At the same time, however, the 1965 act created merit-based categories for immigration and made it easier for people with desirable job skills to obtain permanent residency.

The Immigration Act of 1990 increased the number of immigrants allowed into the US. The annual number of family-based immigrants, in particular, rose from 290,000 to 480,000. Under the 1990 policy, there are five family-based immigration categories. The first is immediate relatives, which includes spouses, children, and parents of adult citizens. The other four categories are called “family preference categories.” These four categories are flexible in whom they include, but they are generally intended to allow the children of citizens, spouses and unmarried children of LPRs, and siblings of adult citizens. While the immediate family category has a “permeable cap” (meaning it can be flexible in the number of people it allows), the other categories have annual limits. Thus, it can sometimes take many years to bring family members into the US.

Congressionally mandated commissions considered overhauls to family-based immigration in 1980 and in the mid-1990s. In 2007, the Senate Bill to Provide for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and for Other Purposes proposed giving preferential treatment to applicants with skills in specialty or high-demand fields, strong English-language ability, and high levels of education. Critics noted that such a proposal would have a significant impact on immigration from Latin America in particular.

During the 113th Congress (2013–14), Senator Chuck Schumer introduced the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, which proposed a points system for admitting immigrants. Part of the bill addressed the backlog of family members waiting for visas so that they could become LPRs more quickly, but it also redefined “immediate family.” While the proposed legislation did not become law, it marked the beginning of a greater push to change the longstanding family-based emphasis of immigration policy.

Family-Based Immigration Today

Immigration issues in general saw enhanced attention during the first administration of President Donald Trump (2017–21), who made anti-immigrant policies a central part of his platform. On the issue of family-based migration specifically, Trump expressed support for the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, introduced by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue in August 2017 and reintroduced in April 2019. The RAISE Act proposed cutting family-based immigration by about half, including by making parents ineligible to come to the US through their citizen children, and eliminating the diversity visa category. The bill aimed to shift evaluation to a points-based skills system. The number of employment-based immigrants would remain the same, but per-country caps would be removed. However, the bill failed to advance.

The United States did clamp down on immigration overall under Trump. For example, in 2019 the so-called public charge rule allowed officials to reject green cards for immigrants who relied or were considered at risk of relying on public assistance. (Beginning in 2020, restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to a sharp decrease in the number of immigrants admitted overall.) However, the Trump administration was not able to substantially reform the basic family-based system before leaving office in 2021. Trump's successor, President Joe Biden, was generally seen as more supportive of immigration, reflecting the overall dynamic of the early twenty-first century in which conservatives tended to support stricter measures while liberals tended to support immigrants' rights. For instance, in 2021 Biden called for a review of the public charge rule and soon stopped enforcing it.

Another goal of legislative proposals has been to address the backlog of family members awaiting visas. According to the Congressional Research Service, at the close of 2017 there was a backlog of approximately four million visa applications for family members of current citizens or LPRs. Congressional representative Judy Chu introduced the Reuniting Families Act in 2018 (reintroduced 2019) that contained measures intended to address this backlog, along with addressing per-country caps and special cases, such as widows, orphans, permanent partners, and stepchildren. The Biden administration included similar reforms in its proposed immigration bill introduced in January 2021, touting them as ways to keep families together. That bill would also allow approved family members to come to the United States while awaiting their green cards and remove discriminatory obstacles facing some LGBTQ families. However, political agreement on the subject continued to prove elusive.

While Biden's administration continued to emphasize a commitment to keeping immigrant families together, a district court struck down his Keeping Families Together program, which was launched in 2024 and intended to allow undocumented spouses of US citizens or LPRs who had lived in the country for ten years to remain in the US during visa paperwork processing. At the same time, Chu's Reuniting Families Act, reintroduced in 2023, failed again to progress. The Congressional Research Service reported that in fiscal year 2024, the backlog of family-sponsored visa applicants who had had their petitions approved remained at nearly 4 million.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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