WASHINGTON: According to latest INS reports, the number of legal immigrants who entered US during fiscal 1995 year was 10.4% less as compared to 1994 and 20.3% below 1993 levels.
TNS attributed the drop to decreases in employment based visas, the end of special programs under the 1986 Amnesty law and reduced admission of parents and spouses of US citizens. However, there is still a backlog of more than a million people waiting to join their families in US.
‘While family based visas remains in demand, just 85,336 employment based visas mere issued in 1995, well below the 140,000 cap,
Recently, an amendment introduced by US Senator Ed Kennedy and Rep. Spencer Abraham deleted a provision from a Senate Judiciary Committee’s approved bill that would have disallowed adult children and siblings from applying to join family members already in US. The same bill is however, likely to decrease legal immigration to 675,000 a year.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 3, 1996
