The Role of Migrant Care Workers in Aging Societies
Legal permanent admissions Permanent immigrants, also known as “green carders,� are persons who are entitled to live and work permanently in the United States and, after five years, to become naturalized U.S. citizens. The four principal doors for legal permanent admission are family reunification, humanitarian interests, employment, and diversity. By far the largest admissions door is for relatives of U.S. residents. In 2008, the last year for which there is detailed statistics, 716,244 (65 percent) of the 1,107,126 million immigrants were granted entry because family members formally petitioned the government to admit them. Immigrants and their family members admitted for employment reasons represented 15 percent of admissions. The third largest category of immigrants included refugees, asylees, and other humanitarian admissions (15 percent), and a very small percent came under the so-called diversity visa category (4 percent).
Family reunification The family category encompasses several sub-categories. The spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens may enter without regard to any numerical limitations, as long as their sponsors are able to demonstrate a capacity to support them. Numerically capped admission categories are available for the unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens, the spouses and unmarried children of legal permanent residents who have not been naturalized, the adult married children of U.S. citizens, and the brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens. In each of the adult categories, the principal applicants may enter with their spouses and minor children. Obviously, many family immigrants are employed, some as professional workers, but a majority are in jobs requiring low-to-average skills such as direct health care.
Humanitarian interests Humanitarian admissions include refugees who were resettled from overseas as well as those who sought asylum having entered the United States on their
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