U.S. Immigration Quotas

[Martin Hash]

The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), the body of law governing current immigration policy, provides for an annual worldwide limit of 675,000 permanent immigrants.

Permanent Employment-Based Preference System Preference Category (140,000)
“Persons of extraordinary ability” in the arts, science, education, business, or athletics; outstanding professors and researchers, some multinational executives. 40,000
Members of the professions holding advanced degrees, or persons of exceptional abilities in the arts, science, or business. 40,000
Skilled workers with at least two years of training or experience, professionals with college degrees, or “other” workers for unskilled labor that is not temporary or seasonal. 40,000
"Other” unskilled laborers restricted to 5,000
Certain “special immigrants” including religious workers, employees of U.S. foreign service posts, former U.S. government employees and other classes of aliens. 10,000
Persons who will invest $500,000 to $1 million in a job-creating enterprise that employs at least 10 full time U.S. workers. 10,000

President set the worldwide refugee ceiling at 70,000
No group of permanent immigrants (family-based and employment-based) from a single country can exceed 7% of the total amount of people immigrating to the United States in a single year.
And, finally, 55,000 visas are allocated randomly to nationals from countries that have sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous 5 years.