- Let's face it. Lines are super annoying. Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. But we can mostly agree that they serve some useful purpose. No matter who you are or where you're from, there's one rule, wait your turn just like everyone else. And that's how it goes with America's immigration system too, right? Well, not so much. If there's one thing that most democratic and republican leaders can actually agree on it's that immigrants should go to the back of the line and wait their turn for a green card. That's a paper that allows immigrants to live here forever and it's what people are usually talking about when they mention the line. But our immigration system is nowhere near as simple or straightforward as most politicians would have us believe. So what does the process of becoming a US resident actually look like? To answer that we have to go way back to 1965. That's when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which created our modern immigration system. Before then we had a pretty racist quota system that favored northern Europeans. But LBJ's act took away the geographic preference and replaced it with one that prioritizes family connections and work skills. The law literally reshaped the face of a nation. It opened the doors to a new tide of immigrants from Latin America and Asia, but with a new law no more than about seven percent of the total number of visas issued each year could go to new comers from any one country. Demand for visas is obviously way higher for people in some countries than others. Take Mexico, it's got more than 127 million people, while Mongolia's got about three million. Yet, they're both allowed roughly the same of green cards. In other words, if you're from a big country like Mexico, the competition for a visa is gonna be a whole lot steeper than Mongolia where sheep literally outnumber people. Those caps have led to massive backlogs of would be immigrants from countries where demand is highest. Places like Mexico, the Philippines, China and India. We're talking wait times in some cases of more than 20 years. Keep in mind that the US admits more immigrants every year than any other country. We're the most popular destination in the world, home to more than 41 million newcomers. And we're only talking about green cards here. More than 10 million people who come to the US each year are only getting temporary visas to work, study and travel, but not to live here permanently. So less than a million visas are for those coveted green cards. And as you might of guessed, demand for green cards is really, really high. About 65% of all green cards are given to close family members in America. Spouses and children of US citizens get the highest priority and adult siblings get the lowest. A very small number are also available to refugees fleeing war and persecution. And then there are visas for jobs. These make up about 15% of the total. Scoring a green card is a whole lot easier for highly skilled and well educated workers. And less than four percent of all employment green cards issued each year go to low skilled workers. So if you're a low skilled worker, from somewhere like Mexico or the Philippines, without any strong family connections in the US, your wait time might actually be longer than your life span. And as always, it helps if you're rich. If you have an extra half a million or more to invest in American businesses and can create at least 10 new jobs, then you're eligible for one of the 10 000 visas the US offers each year to foreign entrepreneurs. That can put you on the green card fast track. So that simple line that politicians talk about, it actually looks more like this. So the idea that our immigration system is this neat, straightforward process with equal opportunity really isn't accurate. The system is designed to only admit a small fraction of applicants who fall into very specific categories. Most republicans and democrats both agree that the current system needs a major overhaul, but they have really different ideas on how to fix it. Take the 2016 republican platform, which talks a lot about beefing up border security and stricter emigration enforcement. On the other hand, the democratic platform broadly pushes for more rights and protections for the undocumented population and for easier paths to citizenship. So what do you think? How should the US decide who gets in and who doesn't? And what would you change about the current system? Let us know in the comments below. Oh, and if you like this video, be sure to check out our video on crime rates in America. And if you haven't already, subscribe. Thanks for watching.