Each year, more than 30.0 million people come to the United
States as non-immigrants. A non-immigrant is a foreign national
seeking to enter the U.S. for a temporary period of time and for
a specific purpose or activity. The Immigration and Nationality
Act includes more than twenty different non-immigrant
classifications, most of which are broken down into several
subclassifications. All of the non-immigrant categories have
alphabetic designations (A, B, C, D, etc.) which correspond to
the section of the law where they are defined. In general,
foreign nationals seeking temporary admission to the U.S. must
first apply for a visa at the American Embassy or Consulate in
their home country. Citizens of Canada are, in most cases,
exempt from the visa requirement. In addition, citizens of
roughly thirty countries, including most European countries,
Japan, Australia and a few others, are eligible to travel to the
U.S. as visitors for business (B-1) or visitors for pleasure
(B-2) without first obtaining a visa in the