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On January 22, 1999 the INS announced that 798,378 people legally immigrated to the U.S. during fiscal year 1997. This marks a thirteen percent decrease in the number of legal immigration in 1996, 915, 900, but the INS feels the number would have been higher by about 400,000 were it not for the large volume of pending adjustment of status applications still not adjudicated. Immigrants who are immediate family members of U.S. citizens accounted for 322,440, or forty percent of all legal immigration, followed by family preference immigrants with 213, 331, refugees and asylees, with 112,158. Employment based immigrants were the smallest group, comprising only 90,607 of the total. 380,718 of the immigrants obtained their immigrant visas abroad while 417,660 adjusted status in the U.S. Mexico led all countries for the most legal immigrants to the U.S., with about 143,000. Thirty-three percent of legal immigrants came from Asia, and fifteen percent from Europe. As has been the case for the past 28 years, the states most immigrants say they intend to live are California, Florida, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
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