In fact, ten percent of all children in the United States live in mixed status families. Current U.S. Immigration policies spell disaster for all of these families. This Act is extremely strict and has caused heartaches for millions of immigrants and their families. The 1996 Immigration Act makes it impossible for poor immigrants to be legally reunited with family members, divides families, and hinders abused women from legalizing their status. Under U.S. immigration law, it can take years for immigrant families to be legally reunited.
Most immigrants enter the United States lawfully in order to reunite with family members.
These are all subject to the annual quotas by preference category and by country. Countries with large number of immigrants have a much longer waiting period. For example, it could take a few years longer for an person from Mexico who is in the first preference category to immigrate than it would a person from most other countries. A Mexican adult son or daughter must wait eight and a half years compared to seven years for most other countries. Thus, families are separated for an extremely long time while their papers are slowly being processed.