A grim reality awaits U.S. green card applicants, as only 3% of the overall applicants are expected to receive permanent status in the current financial year, according to a report from the Cato Institute.
This accounts for an all-time low approval rate for green card applicants.
The Cato Institute research adds that the low approval rate is exacerbated by a strong surge in pending applications at the start of this fiscal, which stood at approximately 34.7 million.
In stark contrast, the total number of backlogs in 1996 stood at 10 million.
Adding to the applicants' woes, the research highlights the U.S. government's recurrent failure to issue available green cards under the imposed caps.
In the current fiscal, legal immigration caps and uncapped categories stand at about 1.1 million, compared to a total candidate count of 34.7 million, implying that 97% of the applicants in FY24 are set to face disappointment.
The staggering number of backlogs, coupled with a low approval rate, signifies the changing dynamics of U.S. immigration policy over the past century.
The report, in fact, highlights that immigration in the U.S. was never a hot topic until 1920. Between 1888 and 1921, 98.1% of immigrant approvals were approved.
But that number has plummeted greatly over the past century, and as the U.S. deals with a growing number of backlogs, the country's green card approval rates could continue to witness new lows.
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