Recent immigrant admissions have slightly increased by 214 percent since adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965-'69 period, annual admissions averaged about 1,025 immigrants. During the 2002-'06 period, admissions averaged about 3,215 immigrants.

The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative immigrant admissions data since 1965. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 875 in FY'66 to 13,519 in FY'91 (related to the amnesty for illegal aliens adopted in 1986). The cumulative total of admissions to New Mexico between fiscal years 1965 and 2002 was about 120,700 immigrants.

The data for FY'95 and FY'97-'99 were artificially low because the INS did not issue green cards to all the eligible applicants for adjustment of status who were already in the United States. In those four years, new immigration could have registered as much as 30 percent higher, if the INS had kept up with its workload.

Beginning with FY'01, the INS began to increase admissions as a result of reducing the size of the backlog of Section 245(i) adjustment of status cases, i.e., amnesty, for illegal aliens.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'93 - FY'02
The INS data below are furnished for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1993. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.

The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Wyoming during this period.

The Department of Homeland Security website has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'91 - FY'00