Immigration.

There are two main types of legal immigration into the United States:

1. Work-based and,
2. Family-based.

Both of these rely on sponsors who already live in the United States.

(1) On the work-based side, employers apply to sponsor “potential” employees for temporary visas. These visas are capped. There are 65,000 H1B visas issued each year (the most common for high-skilled workers). The time it takes for the cap to be reached varies from year to year. For FY 2013, visas were available for about 10 weeks after the petition period began, while for FY 2014, all available visas were issued within the first 7 days. In addition to the shorter time, the visas were issued through a “lottery” system.

When USCIS receives more petitions than it can accept (as it did for FY 2014, when 124,000 petitions were submitted during the first week), USCIS uses a lottery system to randomly select the number of petitions required to reach the numerical limit. The first lottery is limited to those applicants who hold advanced degrees from U.S. institutions.

At the moment, companies hit this cap very quickly.

(2) On the family-based side, US citizens and permanent residents with green cards can apply to sponsor their relatives for green cards. The wait time can vary based on the sponsor’s citizenship status, the relationship, and the countries involved.

If a would-be immigrant does not have a relative or employer in the United States willing to sponsor him or her, there are a few other options, but they involve a lot of wealth or a lottery.

An interesting flow chart:

Source: USCIS.
Image: Reason magazine.