The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services - BCIS' statistics regarding the number of persons who legally immigrated to the United States in Fiscal Year 2002:

 

This total includes new arrivals to the United States who obtained immigrant visas abroad through the Department of State, and persons who were already living in the United States and who became permanent residents by applying for adjustment of status(green card) with the BCIS. The number of persons granted lawful permanent residence in the US. in FY 2002 was about the same as in FY 2001. Legal immigration in recent years, including FY 2002, has been affected by a backlog in adjustment of status applications(green card) pending.

A total of 1,063,732 persons legally immigrated to the United States. Of that total, 384,427 obtained their immigrant visas abroad from the Department of State and 679,305 were granted adjustment of status by the BCIS.

The major categories of immigrants were: immediate relatives of US citizens 486,748; family preferences 187,069; employment preferences 174,968; refugee and asylee adjustments 126,084; and diversity program 42,829.

Sixty-five percent of legal immigrants settled in the following six states: California 291,216; New York 114,827; Florida 90,819; Texas 88,365; New Jersey 57,721; and Illinois 47,235.

Five countries accounted for 40 percent of immigrants: Mexico 219,380; India 71,105; The People's Republic of China 61,282; Philippines 51,308; and Vietnam 33,627.

Unlike the US. Census reports on the foreign-born population, these immigration counts refer only to the number of persons granted lawful permanent resident status in the United States during a one-year period.