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U.S. immigration, explained
The whole system, in eight short sections — enough to know where you stand and what happens next. Everything personal comes at the end, from the free check.
Start here
The whole system, in eight short sections — enough to know where you stand and what happens next. Everything personal comes at the end, from the free check.
Everything in U.S. immigration splits in two. Immigrant visas are for staying: they end in a green card — permanent residence. Nonimmigrant visas are temporary: visiting, studying, or working for a limited time. Most of what welcomeUSA prepares is on the permanent side, and it is where most families are headed.
There are four main ways to permanent status: through family, through work, through humanitarian protection, and — for green card holders — on to citizenship. A diversity visa lottery also exists for countries with low recent immigration. Each door has its own petitions, and each has its own page here.
Three agencies share the work. USCIS decides petitions and applications filed inside the U.S. The Department of State runs the consulates abroad and publishes the monthly Visa Bulletin. Customs and Border Protection decides who enters at the border. welcomeUSA is affiliated with none of them — it prepares what you file with them.
Most cases have two stages. First a petition proves you qualify — a family relationship, a job, your own extraordinary work. Then the green card application itself: adjustment of status if you are already in the U.S., or consular processing with an interview abroad. Some cases file both stages together; your answers decide which path applies to you.
The I-130 guideAdjustment of statusConsular processingThe I-485 guide
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens — spouses, parents, young children — have no annual limit. Most other categories do, per category and per country, and the line is tracked by priority date in the monthly Visa Bulletin. This is why two similar families can have very different waits, and why no single wait time applies to everyone.
Immediate relativePriority dateVisa BulletinProcessing times
Every green card case is checked the same ways: identity and background, a medical exam by an approved doctor, and — in family cases — a sponsor’s affidavit of support showing financial backing. Some histories raise a bar to admission; for several of them, the law provides waivers, which are petitions of their own.
A green card through a marriage younger than two years arrives conditional, and the conditions are removed by petition in the ninetieth-day window before it expires. Cards renew every ten years. Long trips abroad have their own rules. And after five years as a resident — three, married to a U.S. citizen — naturalization opens the door to citizenship.
Removing conditionsRenewing a green cardRe-entry permitNaturalizationN-400 early filing calculator
Rarely on the law — usually on the paperwork. Outdated form editions are rejected unopened. Incomplete filings draw Requests for Evidence that stop the clock. Leaving the U.S. mid-case without advance parole can abandon an application. And people selling immigration help they are not licensed to give remain the oldest trap of all. Careful preparation is the defense against all four — it is the entire reason this software exists.
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