Legal immigration is high now.
Chishti and Gelatt 22 [Muzaffar and Julia; 11/30/2022; “After a Slump, Legal Immigration to the United States Is Returning to Pre-Pandemic Levels”; https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/legal-immigration-us-returns-prepandemic-levels; accessed 7/10/2023; Lowell-WN]
Legal immigration to the United States appears to have bounced back from steep declines sparked by COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions to human mobility and government operations as well as the restrictive policies of the Trump administration. Although final data have not yet been published for all of fiscal year (FY) 2022, the country looks to have accepted 1 million immigrants as permanent residents, edging up to the 1.1 million average in immigrant visa issuance over the last two decades. This represents a marked turnaround from the low of 707,000 permanent immigrants accepted in FY 2020, the fewest since FY 2003.
The recovery is most pronounced in the processing at U.S. consulates abroad, which issued more visas in FY 2022 than in FY 2019, the last full year before the pandemic began. Similarly, officials issued more temporary (nonimmigrant) visas in August and September 2022 than in August and September 2019, before the onset of the pandemic.