How many immediate relative (IR) green cards were issued by DHS by fiscal year from 2018–2023?
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) compiles and publishes counts of new Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), including a detailed breakdown for Immediate Relatives (IR) of U.S. citizens, in its Yearbook and accompanying tables; those tables (notably Table 7 and Table 10 for FY2023) are the authoritative sources for year-by-year IR green card issuances [1] [2] [3]. The documents supplied to this briefing confirm the existence and location of the FY2018–FY2023 IR counts in DHS/OHSS publications but the excerpts provided here do not contain the six discrete annual IR totals themselves, so the exact FY2018–FY2023 IR numbers cannot be reproduced from the supplied snippets alone [4] [1] [2].
1. Where DHS publishes Immediate Relative tallies and why those tables matter
DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) includes class-of-admission breakdowns—Immediate Relatives of U.S. citizens are a distinct class—in its Lawful Permanent Residents annual flow reports and Yearbook tables; the FY2023 report specifically contains "Table 7. Persons Obtaining LPR Status by Type and Detailed Class of Admission" and "Table 10" which enumerate family-based categories including IRs and thus are the primary sources for the numbers sought [1] [2] [3]. The Yearbook aggregates adjustments of status and new arrivals and is the conventional reference used by researchers and policymakers seeking precise counts by fiscal year and admission class [5] [4].
2. What the provided reporting does allow — context on scale and recent totals
The supplied DHS snippets show the scale of LPR admissions in recent years—nearly 1,173,000 persons became LPRs in 2023 and nearly 1,018,000 persons became LPRs in 2022—illustrating the large pool from which immediate relatives constitute a substantial portion; DHS also reports that about 64 percent of new LPRs in recent years were family-sponsored, and Immediate Relatives are a major family class [5] [6]. Independent analyses and policy groups cite that over the last decade the annual average of immediate relatives admitted has been on the order of several hundred thousand—FWD.us cites an average around 479,000 immediate relatives admitted annually over the most recent ten years—highlighting why IR admissions materially affect annual visa limits and category calculations [7].
3. Why exact FY2018–FY2023 IR counts were not reproduced here
The dataset pointers included in the reporting—references to Table 7, Table 10, and the Yearbook PDF—confirm where the per-year IR counts are published, but the snippets provided in this query do not include the numeric rows listing Immediate Relative (IR) counts for FY2018, FY2019, FY2020, FY2021, FY2022, and FY2023 themselves; therefore asserting specific annual IR totals would exceed what these excerpts document and would breach the requirement to cite each factual claim to the supplied reporting [1] [2] [4]. The correct journalistic approach is to point readers to the exact tables in the DHS Yearbook (Table 7/Table 10 for FY2023 and equivalent tables in earlier yearbooks) or to the OHSS "Table 1" and annual flow reports where the breakdowns are published [4] [3].
4. How to obtain the FY2018–FY2023 Immediate Relative numbers and what to watch for
To retrieve the precise IR green card counts for each fiscal year 2018–2023, consult DHS OHSS’s Yearbook of Immigration Statistics and the FY-specific Annual Flow Reports—open the FY2023 Yearbook and view Table 7 and Table 10 for the FY2023 IR figure, and use the corresponding tables in the FY2018–FY2022 reports to assemble the full series [1] [2] [3]. Analysts should be mindful of differences between “adjustments of status” and “new arrivals” reporting, and that other agencies (Department of State visa issuance reports) and USCIS processing reports capture complementary slices of visa use that can affect interpretation of year-to-year shifts [5] [8] [9].
5. Bottom line and transparency about this report’s limits
The DHS Yearbook is the authoritative source for the count of Immediate Relative green cards by fiscal year and contains the exact FY2018–FY2023 figures in its class-of-admission tables; the documents cited here identify those tables and provide context on totals and averages but the immediate-relative annual totals themselves are not present in the supplied snippets, so this article directs readers to consult Table 7/Table 10 and the OHSS Annual Flow Reports for the definitive numbers [1] [2] [3]. Alternative viewpoints or auxiliary data streams—from the State Department’s Report of the Visa Office or USCIS data releases—exist and are useful for cross-checking visa issuance versus port-of-entry admissions, particularly when reconciling adjustments-of-status counts with consular visa issuances [8] [9].