People immigrate to the US to work, reunite with family, study, or seek personal safety. In 2021, 42% of the 1.5 million people who immigrated to the US came for work.
What reasons for immigration does the government track?
The US government generally allows legal immigration for five broad reasons: work, school, family, safety, and encouraging diversity.
People immigrating for work or school are often granted temporary entry rather than permanent residency. Immigration for family generally means the immigrant has a relative who is already in the US as a citizen, green card holder, or temporary visa holder with whom they want to be reunited with. Those who immigrate for safety are refugees or asylum-seekers. And finally, up to 50,000 immigrants obtain green cards annually through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program lottery that grants entry to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.
How do the reasons for immigration change depending on where people are immigrating from?
Of the 638,551 immigrants who came to the US for work in 2021, 61% came from North America. Immigrants from Asia represent the largest geographic cohort among the other four primary reasons for immigration: school (58%), family (45%), safety (34%), and encouraging diversity (33%).
How many immigrants came for each reason in 2021?
Of the 1.5 million people who immigrated to the US in 2021, about 42% came for work, 32% for school, and 23% for family. Nearly 2% were seeking safety, and about 0.9% were admitted on Diversity Immigrant Visas.
How have reasons for immigration evolved over the past 15 years?
Since 2006, work has consistently been the top reason people immigrate to the US, with the exception of 2013–2015 when immigration for work was equal to or slightly lower than for school.
School is usually the second most common reason for immigration except for 2018, when a higher percentage of people began immigrating for family reunification than education. In 2021 school again became the second most common reason.
Safety and diversity have consistently been the fourth and fifth most common reasons for immigration, respectively.
Source: USA Facts