12/20/2011

Immigrant visa issuances during fiscal year 2012 are limited by the terms of INA 201 to no more than 226,000 in the family-sponsored preferences and approximately 144,000 in the employment-based preferences. (Visas for "Immediate Relatives" - i.e., spouses, unmarried children under the age of 21 years, and parents - of U.S. citizens are not subject to numerical limitation, however.)

It should by no means be assumed that once an applicant is registered, the case is then continually included in the waiting list totals unless and until a visa is issued. The consular procedures mandate a regular culling of visa cases to remove from the count those unlikely to see further action, so that totals are not unreasonably inflated. If, for example, a consular post receives no response within one year from an applicant to whom the visa application instruction letter (i.e., the consular "Packet 3" letter) is sent when the movement of the visa availability cutoff date indicates a visa may become available within a reasonable time frame, the case is considered "inactive" under the consular procedures and is no longer included in waiting list totals.

The fourteen countries with the highest number of waiting list registrants in FY 2012 are listed below; together these represent 79.5% of the total. This list includes all countries with at least 60,000 persons on the waiting list. The per-country limit in INA 202 sets an annual maximum on the amount of preference visas which may be issued to applicants from any one country; the 2012 per-country limit will be approximately 25,900.

Country                  Applicants

Mexico                   1,374,294
Philippines              503,266
India                       343,401
Vietnam                  281,439
China-mainland        248,494
Dominican Republic 171,217
Bangladesh             161,769
Pakistan                 118,985
Haiti                        112,450
Cuba                       85,908
El Salvador              83,221
Jamaica                  66,016
Korea, South           64,020
Colombia                61,430
All Others               948,489
Worldwide Total      4,624,399