Coming to America

We used real data from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State to model visa application processes, wait times and costs. Though we’ve simplified some processes, our goal was to give an accurate idea of the challenges and criteria for some of the most common ways people immigrate to the U.S.

Our data came from the Department of Homeland Security’s annual Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, the State Department’s list of action dates for family preference visas and most recent report on visa waiting times, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ data on applications for specific immigration forms and the Justice Department’s report on asylum statistics by country.