The US legal immigration system, which admits about 1.2 million permanent foreign residents a year, continues to favor China greatly despite national security problems.
No country in the world delivers more legal immigrants to the United States, except Mexico, as China has made federal immigration records for the past three years every year.
From 2008 to 2018, more than 825,000 Chinese nationals came to the United States with green cards, immigration status which provides them with permanent residence, a path to American citizenship and eventually a number. Unlimited foreign relatives in the country through. the process known as “chain migration”.
Between 1990 and 1999, hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals arrived in the U.S., but since 2000, the flow of legal immigration from China has steadily been around 65,000 t0 88,000 revenue a year.
In the last three years, from 2016 to 2018, nearly 220,000 Chinese nationals obtained green cards, with the plurality coming as immediate relatives of their foreign relatives were already naturalizing and living in the U.S.
About 60,000 Chinese nationals during this period received their green cards through employment categories, the vast majority of whom were likely to work in the United States and only adjusted their status to become permanent residents.
About 45,000 Chinese nationals, from 2016 to 2018, got green cards through various categories of chain migration, as extended family members of their relatives were already naturalized and living in the U.S.
China, like India, has benefited more than any other country from particular visa programs. India, for example, has monopolized the H-1B visa program, which imports hundreds of thousands of white-collar foreign workers to replace American professionals.
In the same way, China has monopolized the EB-5 visa program, which primarily issues green cards to wealthy Chinese investors and their families as long as they promise to invest in a handful of US jobs. In the last three years, about 30,000 foreign nationals, 80% and 90% of whom are from China, were able to obtain EB-5 visas.
The number of EB-5 visas awarded to most Chinese nationals is, in some cases, 40 times the rate at which these green cards were issued. For example, between 2006 and 2008, only 750 to 1,300 EB-5 visas were assigned to foreigners each year.
The annual number of EB-5 visas issued each year since 2014 has not decreased below 10,000.
Currently, due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis, President Trump has banned travel to China. The travel ban has yet to be extended to all permanent immigration reforms in China, and the EB-5 visa program continues to be delayed for Chinese nationals trying to move to the United States.