About half of the people who receive green cards annually are coming from abroad, and half are already in the United States.
Posted by Bulwark Takes, Checked
- Sources
- 4 support4 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 85%
Bulwark TakesAug 29, 2026
Multiple independent sources show that roughly half of annual green card recipients were already in the U.S. and half came from abroad, though the yearly split varies between about 42% and 58% depending on the year and the source. The claim is a faithful paraphrase of the passage and matches the record as of 2026-08-29.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… Is that right? That's right. If you think about, you know, the million or so people who get green cards every year, about half of them are coming from abroad, and half of them are already here, and most of the people who are already here are here on some kind of they came here as a student, or they're on some kind of temporary work visa, and they're adjusting their status to become a permanent resident. …
Bulwark Takes · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. Brookings reports that about half of the roughly 1.1 million people who acquired green cards in 2023 were already in the U.S.[1]
Supports. Congress.gov (CRS) reports that from FY2014 to FY2023, on average 54% of immigrants adjusted to LPR status from within the U.S., and that roughly half of persons granted LPR status did so by adjusting status.[2]
Supports. MigrationPolicy Institute reports that green cards have been about evenly divided between people already in the U.S. adjusting status and people applying from abroad over the past decade; in FY2024, 42% went to applicants abroad and 58% to people in the U.S.[4]
Supports. The American Immigration Council reports that in FY2023, 608,260 people adjusted status within the U.S. while 564,660 arrived from abroad, a near even split.[5]
Context. Pew Research (June 2026) and Newsweek's summary of it report that 58% of FY2024 green cards went to people already living in the U.S., a figure at the upper end of the 'about half' range. USAFacts reports 44.4% new arrivals over 1986–2022, the lower end of that range.[6][7][8]
Context. The DHS OHSS legal immigration report is a primary source, but the excerpt shown does not give the annual split, so it neither confirms nor refutes the figure.[3]
Sources
8 sources: 3 primary, 5 not rated
- 1Who are the new immigrants?brookings.edu · primary source · cited for: supports
- 2Appendix. Permanent Immigration Statistics - Congress.govcongress.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
- 3Legal Immigration and Adjustment of Status Report | OHSSohss.dhs.gov · primary source · cited for: context
- 4Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United Statesmigrationpolicy.org · not rated · cited for: supports
- 5New USCIS Memo May Force More Green Card Applicants to Apply ...americanimmigrationcouncil.org · not rated · cited for: supports
- 6Majority of new green cards go to immigrants already living ...pewresearch.org · not rated · cited for: context
- 7Green Card Data Sheds Light on How DHS Change Could Impact ...newsweek.com · not rated · cited for: context
- 8How many people have received a US green card?usafacts.org · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
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