The immigration options available to a given person depend on what type of connections that person has to the United States. For instance, if you’re a foreign-born person and you have family in the United States, then they may be able to petition for you for some kind of status. If you’re an immediate relative, you may be able to obtain entry fairly quickly, whereas if you’re a brother or sister of a United States citizen you may have to wait many years – right now the wait is well over a decade – to obtain any kind of permission to enter based on that relationship.

There are other kinds of temporary visas for people who are entering for business or as tourists, and for many of these it’s necessary to convince the U.S. government that you do not plan to stay permanently once you’re here. It really just depends on the individual, which county they’re from, and what kind of connections they already have in the United States.