In the US, however, the vast majority of immigrants are sponsored by relatives, not by work. That’s because Congress has set a cap on the amount of employment-related green cards that could be granted each year — only 140,000, or roughly 13% of the total green cards issued every year.
Consequently, most immigrants in the US get their green cards through spouses, children, and other immediate family members. Even among immigrants from populous countries such as China and India. In such instances, strict country-specific ceilings on employment-based green cards further restrict the number of immigrants who are eligible for an employer-sponsored green card.
And yet, even in China and India, where most of them enter the U.S. to work, the proportion of people who get green cards through family sponsorship is far higher than the proportion that get green cards through employment.
South Korea: The Outlier In the Rulebook.
South Korea is the only major economy in which more immigrants come to the US under employer green cards than under family sponsorship. But keep in mind that around half of the employer green cards granted to South Korean nationals are given to the wife and children of the main worker, which is to say that family immigration still has its importance.
Family-based immigration in general is still the preferred route for immigrants to receive a green card in the United States, primarily because of employment-based restrictions. Families, whether from large nations such as China and India or small ones such as South Korea, dominate immigration in the United States and prove how central family is to the U.S. system of immigration.
