Current US immigration policy is complicated and governmental departments face a backlog of applications upwards of 5 to 7 years. If a foreign born person wishes to come to the US to work and live there are only a few ways he/she can obtain the necessary visa: obtain refugee/asylum status; win one of only 50,000 visas available each year in the US sponsored "lottery" (in 2009 9.1 million qualified applications were received for the lottery); or have a sponsor that is either employment or family based. While this sounds reasonable the parameters around these options are quite restricted. Since the visas for refugees and asylum seekers are specialized, the focus here will be on family and employment based sponsorships.
Agency: Office of the General Assembly
Departments: Immigration
Ministries: Office of the General Assembly