More S Africans are emigrating to the United  States (US) in search of a better lifestyle and job opportunities.

According to data provided by the US Citizenship and Clearing Services, between 2022 and 2022 around ten,200 South Africans obtained permanent resident status.

These include people who received a 'green card', were admitted as temporary nonimmigrants, granted asylum or refugee condition, or were naturalised.

This number has continued to slowly increase in recent years, with simply under seventy South Africans leaving every week, or 9 people a day.

While many of these people will be families that immigrate together, there is growing concern that these South Africans are taking valuable skills with them.

The latest information shows that the largest number of visas are given to Due south Africans who are relatives of US citizens (around 40%).

This is followed by employment-based visas (29%) and the diversity visa program – also known as the greenish card lottery (ix%).

Withal, it is important to note that the green-card lottery is non open every year and is open to a modest group of applicants.

Making the leap

The Department of Habitation Affairs does not keep tape of South Africans who emigrate permanently; withal, receiver countries do go on rail of immigrants, which gives an indication of how many people are actually leaving.

According to this information, the United Kingdom remains the most popular destination for South African immigrants, followed by Commonwealth of australia, New Zealand and the USA.

This is backed upwards past surveys conducted by American recollect tank Pew Research, which found that in that location were at least 900,000 people built-in in South Africa living in other countries in 2017.

For these South Africans, the United Kingdom was the destination of choice, with 210,000 migrants as of 2017. Even so, it was closely followed by Australia (190,000) and the USA (100,000).

Read:  South Africa's emigration problem – no one knows how big the brain drain really is

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