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Chain migration refers to the mechanism by which foreign nationals are allowed to immigrate by virtue of the ability of previous adult immigrants who gain citizenship to send for their adult relatives.

In the United States, chain migration is supposed by many to be one of many reasons that legal immigration has quadrupled from levels during the 1960s. As such, it is one of the causes of the United States' current immigrant population boom. However, number of immigrants per native-born citizen still has not reached levels of the 1880s to 1910s, when over 13% of the population was foreign born. See Immigration_to_the_United_States

Until the late 1950s, America's chain migration policies included only spouses and minor children of immigrants.

However, ever since the late 1950's, chain migration policies of the United States have included the ability for immigrants to not only send for their children and spouses, but also for their parents and adult children of their parents. Theoretically, those parents and adult children, in turn, can send for their children, their parents (assuming great-grandparents of the original immigrant are alive, willing and able to migrate), and adult children of these lucky great-grandparents.

In practice, however, the wait times from when the petition is filed until the adult relative is able to enter the U.S. are typically on the order of 15-20 years (as of 2006). This is in addition to 5 or more years that it typically takes for the initial immigrant to obtain the U.S. citizenship).

• Anchor baby
• Immigration reduction
• Immigration reform
• K-1 visa
• Immigration to the United States