On Immigration to the USA--19 January 2005

The publicity that has been circulating around the world is that the USA has tightened its rules for new immigrants and visitors so much, that the numbers have been going down, and that huge numbers have been looking elsewhere to study or work.

However, I just read a very long article in Immigration Law Weekly (ILW.com), by Steven Camarota of the Institute for Immigration Policy Reform, that confirmed what the U.S. Census had found: during the last 4 years, 2000-2004, the number of foreign-born people living in the United States increased by 4.3 million, to 34.5 million. That is the largest increase over a 4-year period in U.S. history, and the number is the largest living in the U.S. in American history as well. In fact, the percentage of foreign-born people living in the U.S. is at 12 percent, the highest in over 80 years. And while the number includes those coming illegally from Mexico, the number of students, skilled workers, and others immigrating into the USA is also increasing again, after a brief drop for a couple of years after 9-11.

The biggest reason for this continued inflow of people here is the fact that the U.S. immigration system is slowly beginning to improve its work in processing applications of people to come here. And in most categories, the numbers of people allowed to come are either unchanged or increased. And the number of international tourists in the U.S. are now even surpassing the former record year of 2000.

So if you are interested, or someone close to you, is interested in coming to the USA, I am happy to talk to you. You can message me back here on this blog, or e-mail me at FJ.Fernandez@gmail.com. Hope to hear from you soon. I'll be back in a couple of days.

---Floyd F.