Abstract
This article reviews the evidence pertaining to the extent to which U.S. immigrants actually make use of the family reunification entitlements of United States immigration laws, examining the two available studies which are based on probability samples of immigrant entry cohorts. It then provides new estimates of the characteristics of the U.S. citizen sponsors of immigrant spouses and parents. The first study examined, the 1986 Jasso-Rosenzweig study of the FY 1971 immigrant cohort, suggests that the multiplier — the total number of immigrants brought in by one original immigrant — is far less than its potential size but is not trivial. The 1988 General Accounting Office (GAO) report based on the FY 1985 immigrant cohort indicates that 1) the propensity to sponsor new immigrants is substantially higher for immigrants than for native born citizens and that 2) immigrant sponsors of new immigrants tend to petition as soon as they are able to do so according to the law. With respect to the characteristics of sponsors, analysis of the information in the GAO report indicates that 80 percent of the persons who immigrated in FY 1985 as the spouses of U.S. citizens were sponsored by native born U.S. citizens. In contrast, native born U.S. citizens sponsored only five percent of the parent immigrants. Additional findings on the country of origin and sex of the sponsored immigrants are presented.
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