Think moving to the U.S. is as simple as getting a job offer or marrying a citizen?

Think again. In this episode of Immigration Weekly, Rosanna Berardi breaks down the real story behind America’s immigration system – the sponsorship rules, endless quotas, and outdated laws that make it so complicated. With humor and decades of insider experience, Rosanna explains why it’s not as easy as it looks and what’s really standing between you and that green card.

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Transcript

Everyone’s talking about U.S. immigration law, but nobody really knows how it works. I’m Rosanna Berardi. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, a former immigration inspector at the border, university professor, and founder and managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law.

I’ve done nothing but U.S. immigration law for over 30 years, and it’s time to stop the misinformation on all sides. I’m going to tell you how it all works, the inside story. This is Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Immigration Weekly with yours truly, Rosanna Berardi. Well, no shortage of immigration news. I’ve had my law firm since June of 2005.

I dove to the end of the pond and started my own law firm. No idea what I was doing, but since then, 20 years later, I have probably talked to thousands of people asking me the same question. I want to move to the U.S. I like the U.S. Now, the haters are going to hate, people are going to write on my social media, no one wants to come to your stupid country. Well, okay, forget about it if you don’t like that, but lots of people want to come to the U.S., and I always, always get the same question. How do I move to the U.S.? I got a job offer, or my girlfriend lives in the U.S. How do I do this? Can I come in?

Can I move next week? Blah, blah, blah. No.

Understanding Sponsorship-Based Immigration

No, you can’t. Throughout the years, we call these pie-in-the-sky questions because there are so many people, especially Canadians, and this is not meant in a disparaging way. It’s the proximity.

It’s the relationship. I think they can enter the U.S. in a matter of days. So, I’m going to take you through how it works and why, if you ask me, I want to move to the U.S., can I? The answer, most of the time, is no. It is a long and arduous process, but I’m going to break it down quickly, easily, simply, so when you hear in the news or your friend says, well, you know, my cousin’s moving to the U.S., you can be like, not so fast. So, ready, let’s go.

Even if you don’t want to come to our quote-unquote broken country, here’s how it works. Ready, set, go. So, in the United States, you can’t just come in.

You can’t just enter and be like, hey, I want to live here. I want to work here. We have something called sponsorship-based immigration.

What does that mean? It means somebody has to sponsor you. It could be a family member, mother, father, spouse, or an employer.

Let’s say you work for Roswell Park in Buffalo, large cancer institute. You’re a physician or researcher. They say, hey, Mr. Smith, you’ve done amazing things in your country. We would like to employ you here at Roswell Park. Great. Easy enough.

You need a sponsor. 99.9% of the time, you yourself cannot be a sponsor. There are one or two immigration categories that allow for that, but most of the time, coming to the U.S., living here, working here, it’s like country club membership. Now, if you’ve ever wanted to join a country club, you know you just don’t drive up or mail in your application, right? You don’t drive in, you don’t drive up, pull in the car, go inside and say, hi, I’d like an, hi, hi, I’d like, I’d like an application for country club membership. They will say, I’m sorry, Mrs. Berardi, you need to be sponsored by one of our current members. So the United States is like a country club. You need to be sponsored. The U.S. citizen or green card holder is the member of the club, and they are going to bring you or request to bring you into that club. Same with the U.S. employer. Roswell Park, going back to my example, they are going to be the sponsor or the member. That’s why having a job offer isn’t enough.

You’ve got to have an employer or member of the country club be willing to sponsor you, and many aren’t once they find out what it involves, and you’ll see why in a minute. Okay, so what do you know now? You know you can’t just come in, you’ve got to be sponsored.

Who can sponsor you? Members of the country club, family or employers. Next topic, why is it this way?

The Immigration and Nationality Act: A Broken Framework

Well, if you know me, you know you’ve heard about the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. We call it the INA. Passed in 1952, most recently updated in 1965, 1990, and 1996.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes, 1996. No, not in 2016.

Nope, not in 2024. Nope, not in 2025. 1996.

I was in my second year of law school then. We are approaching the 30th anniversary of the last time the INA, Immigration and Nationality Act, was meaningfully updated or revised. So, we are working under the premise of the law.

Not an executive order, a law. This has nothing to do with President Trump. He tries to circumvent this all the time, as a lot of presidents do, because it’s lousy and old and broken, but the INA creates two highways into the United States.

Think about it. The first highway are for people on the family-based train, okay? Those are individuals that are sponsored by their family members of the club.

Then, the second train is employment-based, okay? So, basically, these are the two trains entering the United States. Here’s the catch, though.

The trains, they have tolls. You know when you’re driving, especially on the Florida Interstate I-4, you have to stop every 30 seconds and pay a toll? Well, the U.S. has tolls, or in the law framework, they’re called quotas. Quotas are government limitations, not the Trump administration. But Congress, every year, decides how many people can immigrate to the United States, and they break it down by types of immigration and which countries. So, even if you qualify, and you’re on that employment-based train, and you’ve got your sponsor at Roswell Park, and you’re going into the U.S., there might be a toll or a quota that prevents you from entering because there are other people in front of your line. This is called a preference system. It’s managed through something called priority dates. Basically, the takeaway here, you can come in two ways.

Family, employment-based, government limits it. Supply and demand, more demand than supply. There’s something called priority dates.

That is your place in line. It’s like taking a number at the deli counter, but having thousands and thousands of people ahead of you. I wish I was exaggerating.

Some of our clients wait 10 or 12 years in line for their turn. So, it’s a lot more complicated than people think. You’ll see restrictionists protecting U.S. workers, protecting U.S. population, people. We have a lot of people in the United States, 330 plus million compared to Canada, 30 million, 10x. Our immigration laws have always been restrictive. My father, who immigrated from Italy in 1954, immigrated not to the U.S., too hard. Immigrated to Canada. Canada has lax liberal immigration laws. They’re a little bit stricter now.

People always say, well, Canada lets people in. Well, yeah, yeah, of course. They have 30 million people and a huge country.

We have a huge country, lots and lots of people. So, our law has always been restrictionist, protective of U.S. workers. All right, family first.

Family-Based vs. Employment-Based Immigration

Let’s talk about family first. If you have a family member and you want to come to the U.S., you probably won’t be able to, but I’ll tell you if you’re in the small percentage that can how it works. Family-based immigration.

Remember, U.S., United States of America, big country club. You got to have a member sponsor you. That member is either a family member or an employer.

Okay, so family member. People are like, my cousin lives in Pittsburgh. I live Mississauga.

I’m moving to the U.S. Unfortunately, no, you’re not. Why? Because under the family-based category of the INA, the government gives preference only to immediate relatives.

What does that mean? An immediate relative is either your parent, mother, father, or spouse. Those are the immediate relatives and they are the VIPs of the family-based system.

Why am I saying that? They’re VIPs because spouses of U.S. citizens, unmarried children of U.S. citizens, parents of U.S. citizens, they can immediately sponsor and not have to wait in line. There’s no cap.

The federal government, Congress, Department of State, no one says we can only have 25,000 immediate relatives in the U.S. Nope. Unlimited VIP status. So if you’re a U.S. citizen like myself, I can sponsor a foreign national to enter the United States. I can sponsor my mother or my father. Or if I were to marry again a foreign national, I can sponsor a partner to come to the United States. Everyone else, brothers and sisters, siblings of U.S. citizens, spouses and kids of green card holders, not on the VIP list. They can file for you, but you’re gonna wait forever. Why? Remember, Congress has decided to limit the number of people that can come in.

They do it by category, preference, relationship, and countries. So for example, if I’m a U.S. citizen and I’m gonna sponsor my father who lives in Italy, I can do that at any time. He doesn’t have to wait in line.

If I’m a U.S. citizen and I want to sponsor my brother who lives in India and was born in India, I can sponsor him. He’s probably gonna wait over a decade for the people in the back. 10 plus years to come to the United States.

It’s long. It’s hard. It’s arduous.

Difficult. This law is protective. This law says we’re only letting in the immediate relatives of the VIP American citizen members of the country club.

Is it elitist? Is it restrictionist? Maybe.

It’s what we have. And if people don’t like it, they should call their congressperson because they haven’t touched it in almost 30 years. All right, family stuff.

Remember, the immediate relatives, the people that are closest to you, are gonna benefit. As the relationship gets watered down, siblings, kids of green card holders, you’re gonna wait. You’re gonna wait a long time, especially if you are from countries that are called oversubscribed, meaning lots and lots, no shortage in the United States.

Canadians, Indians, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese, all long waits. Okay, so remember, we’ve got the one train going into the U.S., family-based. Now we’re gonna go on the employment-based train.

Now there’s a lot of ways that you can come to the U.S. permanently. There is a whole slew of non-immigrant categories, over 20 of them. Those are ways that you come in temporarily, the TN, the L1, the E, alphabet soup.

But to stay permanently, and that’s what we’re talking about, like living and working in the U.S. permanently, there’s a bunch of ways to get a green card. Green card’s not green. Fun fact, hasn’t been green in a long time.

They change the color of it like every six months because counterfeiting is so good and you can buy a green card off the street in most major cities and yada, yada, yada. But it’s known as the green card, aka lawful permanent residence in the United States. There are employment-based categories.

Employment Categories and Final Thoughts

The government loves this category system. EB1, 2, 3, 4, 5, sounds like a song. Well, guess who’s at the top of the EB1s?

People of extraordinary ability. You can sponsor yourself. If you’re Celine Dion, not today, but if you’re Celine Dion 20 years ago, you could show that you’re in the top 1% of your field, you can self-petition for a green card.

We use this category for scientists, researchers, actors, actresses, all the household names. I would gather Seth Rogen, fan favorite from Canada, he probably got his green card through the EB1. EB2 and EB3, those are people that hold advanced degrees and also can be skilled workers.

Yeah, we’ve got some priorities here. We want the top 1% and then we want the really smart people to be green card holders. Those green cards, hard.

Why? Your employer, go back to Roswell Park, they say, hey, Dr. Smith, you’ve done amazing things. You have patents.

You have written five or six publications as the lead author. You have won the National Science Foundation Award. We want to keep you forever.

Great, Roswell Park. They have to show that they cannot find an American to do Dr. Smith’s job. How do they do that?

By supervised recruitment for the U.S. Department of Labor. They are told what to do. Advertise in a Sunday newspaper.

Not that that’s current. Advertise on a job board like Monster or Indeed. Make sure you post it internally.

You’ve got to give U.S. citizens an opportunity. There is fundamentally built in our immigration law preferences for American workers. Very, very hard for green card holders.

You know, a lot of companies, once they find out they’ve got to test the U.S. job market, they have to pay all the legal fees, all the government fees. A lot of employers will say, forget it. We don’t want to do this.

It’s too much. That’s why when your cousin says at Thanksgiving dinner, we need all Americans. These employers, they’re just doing it for cheap.

I would say not really. Most employers are doing this because they can’t find Americans. There’s documented shortages in health care, technology, science, engineering, math, STEM, all of those things.

This is a fortune for them. It’s a long process. Do our clients do it?

Yes. All day, every day. I’ve made a career out of it for 20 plus years.

You can get a green card through an employer. It’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of time.

And sometimes you wait in line for a very long time, depending on what country you’re from. So, OK, what did we learn today? You can’t just move in family based, employment based, VIP, high level, smart, educated.

This immigration law, not that good. Think about the last time someone from Congress looked at it and said, you know, we should look at the U.S. immigration law, 1996. Internet was just coming out.

No smartphones, certainly no social media, tech, AI, the advances in medicine in 30 years. Are you kidding me, Congress? Hello, where are you and what in God’s name are you doing?

Oh, I know you’re doing all of those backdoor things anyway. Very difficult to come to the United States. Good people go through all the process, pay the money, follow the rules, get their applications in.

It gets approved and they’re stuck waiting in line for 20 years. No bueno, but this is what we have if you don’t like it. It’s not the guy in the office that I am not by any means defending President Trump.

No president should be making the immigration law. Remember Congress? Remember the legislative branch?

They make the law and they need to change it. I’ve taught at the university’s law school here in Buffalo and my hashtag on my tombstone is going to say hashtag where’s Congress. Anyway, if you wanted to move to the United States, yes, it’s possible.

It’s murky. You got to plan. Do not sell your house.

Do not pull your kids out of school. I can’t tell you when I worked at the border as an immigration officer, the number of people that would show up with their movie van saying, I’ve got a job offer. I’m coming to the U.S. No, you’re not. This is not a self-serving pitch. Immigration lawyers have jobs for a reason. You got to have a strategy, a sponsor.

It always takes longer and costs more than you think. It’s like buying a house. Do your homework.

Make sure you know what you’re getting into and get professional help. You guys, I do this all day every day for almost 30 years. It’s complex.

Stakes are high. You’re not just moving to the U.S. Do people do it? Yes.

All day, every day. Takes longer. Like most things, it’s not what you think.

It’s more expensive. You got to go in with eyes wide open, realistic expectations, and most importantly, a plan. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Tried to make it interesting, not too nitty gritty detail, but I think now you can safely say at Thanksgiving dinner, it is hard to come to the United States legally. Until next time, I’m your host, Rosanna Berardi with Immigration Weekly. This was Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Thanks for joining. Be sure to connect with me, Rosanna Berardi, on LinkedIn or go to our law firm at berardiimmigrationlaw.com. If you don’t want to miss the latest and greatest, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share this with your friends.

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