Which of the following is not a main category of immigrants?
Executive summary
The mainstream way U.S. government and policy analysts divide “types” of immigrants centers on the pathways that lead to lawful permanent residency: family‑based, employment‑based, humanitarian (refugees and asylees), and the Diversity Visa lottery — categories repeatedly named in federal guidance and immigration research [1] [2] [3]. By contrast, labels like “citizens” or “residents” describe immigration status, not a route into the country, and therefore are not counted among the main admission categories for immigrants [4] [5].
1. What authoritative sources say about the main categories
U.S. government and research organizations outline four primary admission pathways that produce lawful permanent residents: family ties (immediate relatives and family preferences), employer sponsorship, humanitarian protection for refugees and asylees, and the Diversity Visa lottery — each appearing in official State Department and Migration Policy reporting as a main route to a green card [2] [3]. Legal and advocacy summaries likewise use these groupings when explaining which channels supply most green cards and permanent admissions [1] [6].
2. Why “citizen” or “resident” is a different kind of label
Terms such as “U.S. citizen,” “legal permanent resident,” “non‑immigrant,” and “undocumented” describe a person’s immigration status at a point in time — who may vote, be deported, or hold a green card — rather than the category by which they were admitted into the United States [4] [5] [7]. Several legal guides and immigration law pages list those four statuses as classification systems distinct from admission categories; they are outcomes or legal conditions that follow admission, not admission pathways themselves [4] [5].
3. Where reporting and popular lists can cause confusion
Many secondary sources and law‑firm FAQs present “four types” either as the four admission categories (family, employment, humanitarian, diversity) or as four statuses (citizen, resident, non‑immigrant, undocumented), which produces mixed messages for readers trying to match the question “Which is not a main category of immigrants?” [6] [4] [1]. Migration Policy Institute and other research outlets emphasize pathways to permanent residence in their statistical framing, underscoring that pathway‑based categories are central when discussing immigration admissions [3] [8].
4. The direct answer, framed for clarity
When the question is about “main category of immigrants” in the sense used by government admissions and immigration statistics, labels like “citizen” or “noncitizen status” are not main categories of immigrant admission; they are legal statuses that can result from admission or later naturalization [2] [4]. Therefore, if presented a multiple‑choice list that mixes admission pathways (family, employment, humanitarian, diversity) with status labels (citizen, resident, undocumented), the correct exclusion would be a status label such as “citizen” — it is not a main category of immigrants as defined by admission pathways [1] [5].
5. Caveats and alternative framings to watch for
If the source or questioner uses “types of immigrants” to mean “types of immigration status,” then “citizen” or “resident” would be central and a pathway (for example, the Diversity Visa) would instead be the odd one out; reporting and web guides do not always standardize terminology, so the intended meaning matters [4] [6]. The clearest way to resolve ambiguity is to confirm whether the list refers to admission categories (how people get permanent residence) or status categories (what legal standing people hold after arrival), a distinction that Migration Policy and the State Department consistently make in their explanations [3] [2].