The Present Types Of U.S. Immigration Visas

The new US immigration visa types are very flexible and available to the people living in other nations. The U.S. immigration visa allows an individual who desires to travel to the United States of America from any country as a non-immigrant or immigrant should apply for entry permission at a Consulate outside the United States. Only a few years ago the process of getting an immigration visa was lengthy and required a substantial amount of paperwork. The application for an immigration visa was submitted to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and then the individuals asking for the immigration visa had to attend an interview at an U.S. consulate. It took so much time for processing and it could take several months; furthermore mistakes in applications could have resulted in delays of even a couple of years. However today the situation has changed, getting a United States immigration visa has become much easier and nowadays many are using electronic forms in order to get the immigration visa from the consulate. There are actually a couple of immigration visa types available to foreigners who wish to enter the United States. According to these new rules and regulation the U.S. immigration visa types are divided into nonimmigrant visas and immigrant visas.

The nonimmigrant immigration visa types are mainly useful for those individuals, who desire to study, work, visit or travel through the United States of America. These nonimmigrant visas are also divided into four types: the work visa, the visitor visa, the student visa and the family visa. The Work visas are the most popular temporary work permit to enter in to United States for specialty occupation. The work visa includes H1B,E3,TN,L1,E1,E2,I,O,P,R,H2B. The Visitor visa is for foreign individuals who can demonstrates their business and travel temporarily in the U.S. and the B1, B2 and Visa waiver program comes under this category. While the Student visas are mainly for foreign individuals who want to study in U.S. Universities or colleges. The Family visas (K and V) are available to those who plan to marry a U.S. citizen.

The Immigrant visas provide permanent resident status also known as a Green Card which allows foreign nationals to reside permanently, work and travel in the U.S. There is no reason not to file more than one "green card application" or visa petition at the same time to obtain your lawful permanent residence. For example, a non- United States citizen can be sponsored simultaneously by an Employer, a permanent resident parent and he or she can simultaneously submit an application for the visa lottery. This same non-United States citizen can obtain his or her green card from whichever case is completed first thus saving time. The reason different cases take different periods of time to complete is because the number of people allowed to enter the United States each year with an Immigrant Visa is limited under a quota system. There are some cases that have a long waiting list under the quota system, such as sponsorships of brothers and sisters of United States citizens and other cases have very little wait at all, such as self sponsorship based on extraordinary ability. The person who is being sponsored for a green card is called a "beneficiary". The beneficiary's place in line under the quota system is determined by priority dates. The priority date is the date in which a beneficiary's application is first received by the immigration service or labor department.