More South Africans are emigrating to the United\u00a0 States (US) in search of a better lifestyle and job opportunities.<\/p>\n
According to data provided by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, between 2015 and 2017 around 10,200<\/strong> South Africans obtained permanent resident status.<\/p>\n These include people who received a ‘green card’, were admitted as temporary nonimmigrants, granted asylum or refugee status, or were naturalised.<\/p>\n This number has continued to slowly increase in recent years, with just under 70 South Africans leaving every week, or 9 people a day.<\/p>\n While many of these people will be families that emigrate together, there is growing concern<\/a> <\/strong>that these South Africans are taking valuable skills with them.<\/p>\n The latest data shows that the largest number of visas are given to South Africans who are relatives of US citizens (around 40%).<\/p>\n This is followed by employment-based visas (29%) and the diversity visa programme – also known as the green card lottery (9%).<\/p>\n However, it is important to note that the green-card lottery is not open every year and is open to a small group of applicants.<\/p>\n Making the jump<\/strong><\/p>\n The Department of Home Affairs does not keep record of South Africans who emigrate permanently; however, receiver countries do keep track of immigrants, which gives an indication of how many people are actually leaving.<\/p>\n According to this data, the United Kingdom remains the most popular destination for South African immigrants, followed by Australia, New Zealand and the USA.<\/p>\n This is backed up by surveys conducted by American think tank Pew Research<\/a><\/strong>, which found that there were at least 900,000 people born in South Africa living in other countries in 2017.<\/p>\n For these South Africans, the United Kingdom was the destination of choice, with 210,000 migrants as of 2017. However, it was closely followed by Australia (190,000) and the USA (100,000).<\/p>\n
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