In the year 2010, women comprised of 55 percent of all people getting a green card. Out of this 55 percent, 60 percent were married, while the remaining were single, widowed, or divorced. Of the refugees, women were 47 percent and comprised of 53 percent of people who were naturalized. During the 1960s, immigrant men were more than the immigrant women. However, once the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, more women started to come to the US. The INA gave more importance to family-based admissions. In the 1970s the number of women immigrants surpassed the men. As of 2010, the ration for immigrant men and women coming to the US was 96:100.
Compared to native born Americans, foreign nationals in the US live in families at a greater rate. Per a research done by New America Media in 2009, immigrant women encourage naturalization in their families. On the whole, 84 percent of the women who were surveyed wanted to become citizens. The survey also indicated only 13 percent of immigrant women work as professionals in the US, even though 32 percent of them previously worked in their home country. Immigrant women business owners outclass the US-born women. During 2010, immigrant women were 40 percent of all immigrant business owners and are more likely to own their own business than US-born women.
But there is a bad news as well for them. There is a increase in deportations of undocumented immigrants which leads to separating children from their parents. Per a research conducted by the Applied Research Center in 2011, more than 5,000 children live in foster care and their parents had been detained or deported from the US. The report also estimates that due to immigration enforcement, another 15,000 children will be in foster care in the next five years.
Immigrant women are prone to abuse at work and at home. Per a study conducted by Domestic Workers United, 33 percent of domestic workers in New York were subject to some form of physical or verbal abuse. This is quite often due to their race or immigration status. Though domestic abuse affects both immigrant and US-born women, immigrant women suffer from certain vulnerabilities, mostly from abusive partners who use the female’s immigration status to keep them from leaving an abusive marriage. Immigrant women and children are also vulnerable to Human trafficking. Per the U.S. Department of Justice statistics, 50,000 people are trafficked into the US every year. Though 5000 “T” visas are available to help free immigrant women forced into, among other things, the sex trade, it is a fact that very less visas are issued in this category. In 2010 only 447 T Visas were approved.