Immigration law: What is it?

It will probably come as no surprise to learn that US immigration law is very complicated. The laws have been created over many years and are not the result of coherent planning. Instead they are the result of whatever the political mood at the time is. This can make it challenging for the immigrant to know just what the rules are. It is also why most immigrants will use a lawyer to help them.

Immigration law is the rules that cover who is allowed to move to the United States. It is a very complicated series of laws as there are now all kinds of different rules. The days when there were no laws at all and anybody who wanted to could simply show up are long gone. These days the United States severely restricts the number of people who are allowed to move to the country and who is allowed to do so. The result is that there are now lots of lawyers who specialize in helping people to move to the United States.

In general immigration law is geared towards making sure that immigrants will be an asset to the country. As a result the most common way that people are able to get in is through having a family member who already lives here. The idea is that if you have a close relative who lives in the country you will be able to adapt better than somebody who doesn't know anybody. As a result the vast majority of green cards are granted under the family category. This is probably going to continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

It is still possible to move to the United States on an employment based visa but this is getting harder and harder. In reality there are more refugee visas granted than employment visas these days. The reason is that in most cases it is necessary to show that no American could do the job before a visa will be granted. This is hard to do for a lot of jobs as unemployment has become a problem. For highly skilled workers however it is still possible to qualify in this way. Oddly unskilled workers can qualify this way as well as there are a number of jobs that Americans simply don't want to do.

There are a lot of other ways that you can qualify for a visa to move to the United States. This is why you are probably going to want to hire a lawyer to help you. It is very possible that you may be eligible under a category that you never knew existed. One of the challenges of immigrating to the US is that the laws are so complicated that few people can navigate them on their own. This is especially problematic if English is not your first language.