THE DEMAND FOR IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED-STATES

This paper examines trends and cross-national variation in the active demand for immigration to the United States in the period of 1984-1993 , using data from the Visa Office and various other sources. The analy sis is restricted to legal immigration in numerically limited categori es. The results show that the total number of active immigrant visa ap plicants steadily increased in the aggregate and in each of the prefer ence categories. Moreover, the active demand for immigration was highl y skewed, with the majority of applications coming from a dozen countr ies: Mexico, the Philippines, India, mainland China, South Korea, Taiw an, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and Pakistan. Most of these highly-backlogged countries displayed a si gnificant increase in the growth rate of demand for immigration. The p aper also shows a substantial cross-national variation in the active d emand for immigration and explores its structural determinants. The re gression results indicate that the level of economic development in se nding countries and U.S. economic and cultural relations with sending countries play important roles in the determination process. Policy im plications of the findings are also discussed.