LEGAL IMMIGRATION TOTAL FALLS DURING 1998

During fiscal year 1998, which ran from October 1997 to October 1998, the U.S. granted legal permanent residence to only 660,477 foreign nationals. This number is a 17% drop from the totals in 1997, and a 28% drop from 1996. These numbers, however, do not reflect the growing backlog in pending applications for permanent resident status. There are currently over 890,000 applications pending, significantly more than in 1994, when there were only 121,000. During 1994 the average period between submission of the application and approval was four months, today it almost always takes over 18 months, and sometimes over three years.

Green cards, the symbol of permanent residence, were granted in the following ways. Almost three-quarters of those granted went to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. 77,517 were granted on the basis of employment, and the remainder, about 55,000, were granted to refugees and asylees.

Citizenship was granted to 637,000 people during fiscal year 1998, bringing the citizenship backlog down from almost two million cases to 1.7 million cases. Ironically, INS efforts to tackle the citizenship backlog are at least in part responsible for growing backlog in adjustment applications. More and more agency resources are being used for processing citizenship, and indeed, in some INS offices processing of adjustment applications has halted altogether to focus on citizenship.

The INS’ failure to adjudicate green card applications has actually had one short-term positive result, at least for Indian and Chinese applicants. Priority dates had previously been as long as four years for these applicants. But the quotas have gone unfilled since these cases are not longer being worked. Presumably, the backlogs will return when the cases are again being worked.

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