The allocation of visas for exceptional talent is surprisingly skewed. Only about 6% of 1 Million green cards issued each year are issued to people who are here for their skills. Rest goes to family based immigration.

This specially hurts engineers on H1B from India and China the most, because of per country limits, they have to wait for close to a decade. e.g., someone from India, who qualifies for the definition of "Exceptional" for EB2 bucket, should have applied in 2005 to get visa this month.