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Country of Chargeability
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Because the family and employment based quotas limit the use of visas by people from any one country to no more than 7% of the overall quota, it is important to determine how applicants are charged to individual countries. The Immigration and Nationality Act, at Section 202(b) sets forth rules for assigning visa applicants to individual countries for quota purposes:
"b. Rules for Chargeability. - Each independent country, self-governing dominion, mandated territory, and territory under the international trusteeship system of the United Nations, other than the United States and its outlying possessions, shall be treated as a separate foreign state for the purposes of a numerical level established under subsection (a)(2) when approved by the Secretary of State. All other inhabited lands shall be attributed to a foreign state specified by the Secretary of State. F or the purposes of this Act the foreign state to which an immigrant is chargeable shall be determined by birth within such foreign state except that—
(1) an alien child, when accompanied by or following to join his alien parent or parents, may be charged to the foreign state of either parent if such parent has received or would be qualified for an immigrant visa, if necessary to prevent the separation of the child from the parent or parents, and if immigration charged to the foreign state to which such parent has been or would be chargeable has not reached a numerical level established under subsection (a)(2) for that fiscal year;
(2) if an alien is chargeable to a different foreign state from that of his spouse, the foreign state to which such alien is chargeable may, if necessary to prevent the separation of husband and wife, be determined by the foreign state of the spouse he is accompanying or following to join, if such spouse has received or would be qualified for an immigrant visa and if immigration charged to the foreign state to which such spouse has been or would be chargeable has not reached a numerical level established under subsection (a)(2) for that fiscal year; (3) an alien born in the United States shall be considered as having been born in the country of which he is a citizen or subject, or, if he is not a citizen or subject of any country, in the last foreign country in which he had his residence as determined by the consular officer; and (4) an alien born within any foreign state in which neither of his parents was born and in which neither of his parents had a residence at the time of such alien's birth may be charged to the foreign state of either parent."
The rule described in Section 202(b)(1) is what is known as "alternate chargeability". This rule is designed to permit a child born in a country with an adverse quota backlog from being separated from his or her parents, born elsewhere, due to an accident of birth.
The rule described in Section 202(b)(2) is known as "cross chargeability" and it is designed to allow a married couple, born in different countries, to take advantage of the more favorable of the two quotas.
In all other situations, the rule in the main paragraph of Section 202(b) applies. It is the country where the applicant was born, not the country of the applicant's citizenship that matters.