A Microsimulation of Age-Out Dynamics in United States Employment-Based Immigration

The U.S. employment-based (EB) immigration system’s 7% per‑country cap generates wait times that diverge by decades across nationalities. These delays are especially consequential for dependent children, who lose eligibility for derivative status at age 21. This paper develops a microsimulation of U.S. EB immigration that reconstructs the queue from FY2009–FY2024, assigns dependents using nationality‑specific demographic profiles, and simulates visa allocation. The model reproduces the FY2025 backlog and projects the system through FY2040 under the current capped system and an uncapped counterfactual. From FY2025–FY2040, age‑outs rise from 147,078 under uncapped allocation to 188,286 under capped allocation, an increase of 41,208 children who lose status due to the per‑country cap. Over the same horizon, Indian children account for roughly 36% of age‑outs in the uncapped regime but approximately 72% in the capped regime. Among post‑2015 EB‑2 and EB‑3 Indian entrants and post‑2025 EB‑2 Chinese entrants, the conversion probability for children falls to zero or near zero, while similarly situated children from other countries remain far more likely to attain permanent residence. The findings show that the 7% per‑country cap both amplifies age‑out incidence and concentrates intergenerational harm among high‑demand nationalities.