http://goo.gl/nVat

What is that!? In case you’re wondering, it is actually the same address (URL) as this one:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.
5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=8c75d06dcebf9210VgnVCM
100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=
68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD

Yes, we are using shortened URLs, but almost exclusively on USCIS pages which are extremely long, as demonstrated in the example above. USCIS’ content management system apparently add these dynamically generated “keys” in their URL, but it is meaningless to users. We started using URL shortening on Twitter first, which is necessary due to the 140-character limit, but thought it wouldn’t hurt to try it on our news page because it contains lots of links to USCIS updates.

There are many URL shorteners such as TinyURL, bit.ly, tr.im, and so on. I picked Google’s shortening service arbitrarily, or because I have been a fan of Google’s tools for years and their Chrome browser offers a convenient tool to trim long URLs with one click.

So there you go. Don’t grow suspicious when you see a weird goo.gl link on our site; it is taking you to a legitimate source – as always – we are just tired of super long USCIS web addresses.

All newsletters contain information about the latest visa bulletin; yet all of them are simply describing VB tables in sentences. This doesn’t add much value to the easy-to-understand tables, in my opinion? In addition, by the time most newsletters arrive in my inbox, the Visa Bulletin was already out for a couple weeks. Unless attorneys are able and willing to offer some in-depth analysis, such as describing visa spill-over in more details, discussion of the visa bulletin is probably no longer news-worthy.

Another component of most newsletters that is also showing diminishing value is the re-broadcast of USCIS news. Again, since most newsletters are weekly or even monthly publications, they often are talking about old news instead. With Twitter, blogging, RSS and other venues, news is more accessible than ever, and in real time too. I’d be much more interested if a newsletter can bring information from an “unidentified source familiar with the situation” – also known as rumors – than press releases. Sure, there is liability and blah blah blah, but that is what a disclaimer is for, isn’t it?

One part I still read in those immigration newsletters is “Success Stories.” They all contain promotional languages, obviously, but at least I expect to find something new. More importantly, it adds a personal touch, as you are learning about a person or family, not just something called the law.

To use the Entrant Status Check (ESC) Web site, you need to have your Submission Confirmation ready. The confirmation page was displayed when you successfully submitted your Diversity Visa (DV) lottery entry. More specifically, it contained your Entrant Confirmation Number, Last/Family Name (or blank if none), and Year of Birth. You must have this information in order to log into the website and check the status of your entry.

Your confirmation number should be 16 characters long, and start with 2011. For example: 20112O0DZWY3DOV9. Be sure to differentiate the letter O and number 0 (zero) when you enter it.

If the information you entered matches DOS record, you will be presented with an Authentication Code. Enter this code in the text field and click Submit. If you cannot recognize all characters, you may click the speaker symbol and hear an audio clip of the code, or refresh it to try a new one. Your status will be displayed after the authorization step.

If your entry was NOT selected, you should see a message like the one below:

“Based on the information provided, the Entry HAS NOT BEEN SELECTED for further processing for the 2011 Electronic Diversity Visa program …”

If your entry was selected for further processing, the status will be:

“Based on the information and confirmation number provided, you should have received a letter by mail from the United States Department of State’s Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) notifying you that your Diversity Visa entry was selected in the DV-2011 lottery.

If you have not yet received your selectee letter, please do not contact KCC until after August 1, 2010…”

If you still have not received the notification letter in the mail by August 1, 2010, and the website indicated that your entry was selected, you should contact KCC at kccdv@state.gov.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is aware of the fact that some private parties are selling free USCIS forms and Infopass appointments for profit. In a recent blog post, USCIS reminded immigrants of such activities, but fell short of calling them fraudulent.

These services are offered free of charge by USCIS, but they do cost money. To design all the forms and to maintain local offices where infopass appointments take place aren’t necessarily cheap.

Immigrants are effectively paying for these services through application fees.

But some are tricked into paying more, by falling prey to websites and individuals who somehow manage to sell them.

Although selling USCIS forms is not nearly on the same level as green lottery scams yet, it is still troublesome.

USCIS can do more to raise awareness among unsuspecting immigrants, not only to save them money, but also to minimize their chances of using outdated USCIS forms, which can have severe consequences. Here are five suggestions:

1. On all USCIS forms, clearly indicate they are available for free, as shown in the image above. Free advertising for uscis.gov as well:
2. Convert more applications to electronic filing, which would eliminate or greatly reduce the need for downloading forms. E-file offers numerous benefits, not limited to detering fraud.
3. Make all PDF forms fillable, save-able and user friendly. This should help people who may be knowingly looking for better alternatives to save time. Also update expiring forms with new expiration dates or replace them with new versions in a timely manner.
4. Educate immigrants with information on unethical vs. illegal practices, and encourage them to report fraud.
5. Make all USCIS forms copyright protected. As a federal government agency, USCIS may have to work with a private organization to do this. But if implemented, it will enable them to pursue legal actions if they have to.

Our only advice to immigrants is very simple:

Just don’t download any USCIS forms from anywhere but uscis.gov!

E. J. Montini from The Arizona Republic wrote a story today about Tyson Nash, a former professional hockey player. He is a Canadian, and has been trying to secure a green card forever. Every time you hear the name of a pro athlete who happens to be from a foreign country, you may be thinking about his plays, his salary, his whatever, but rarely his immigration status. What is the legal status of Yao Ming, Pau Gasol, or the hundreds of Hispanic baseball players still playing in the MLB? O or P visa? Pending I-485? Many of you don’t have a clue – me either.

But apparently some athletes face the same immigration red tape just like we do:

During his time in this country, he has paid over a million and a half dollars in taxes. He has worked steadily and never been in trouble. He received the Coyotes’ Man of the Year Award in 2004 for his involvement in the community. He has paid lawyers over $16,000 to help him go through the immigration process the “right way.”

But in the end, since waiting for a USCIS interview somehow took longer than his professional career, he got the red card instead.

“Essentially, he told me that I filed my application as a hockey player and not a broadcaster so I had to get back in line and refile,” Nash said. “I can’t explain the frustration.”

So when he ran into a green card lottery winner, he couldn’t help but wonder what is right about the “right way.”

Titled “Startup Visa Act of 2010,” the bill will grant a two-year conditional visa to an entrepreneur who can secure $250,000 or more for his/her start-up venture from a qualified U.S. investor. After two years, if the company has generated at least five full-time jobs in the U.S., attracted additional $1 million, or achieved at least $1 million in revenue, the immigrant founder will be able to remove the conditions and become permanent resident (green card).

We fully support this proposal. In fact, we have been promoting the same idea for over two years now. Here is what we said in our Immigration Reform section:

Create visa category for entrepreneurs
Expand EB-5 to include entrepreneurs. They will earn permanent residence not by how much money they bring to the U.S., but by how many jobs they can create. It rewards innovation, and might just allow a foreign student with a brilliant idea, but no money, to try and succeed.

This bill will not increase the total number of immigrant visas. Instead, it will create a new EB-6 visa category which draws visas from the existing EB-5 pool. EB-5 is basically rewarding entrepreneurs who are already successful outside the United States and therefore are capable of investing their own money to create U.S. jobs (this is why they are often called investor visas). EB-6, as a comparison, would offer the same reward (green card) to people who are not as rich, but have innovative ideas that are endorsed by angel or venture investors. Both EB5 and EB6 visa holders are given two years to prove their worth, by demonstrating the creation of new jobs or real growth, for example.

A group of 160 venture capitalists and investors are supporting this bill.

Just like any immigration reform bill, it will draw plenty of criticism. And just like any immigration reform bill introduced over the past few years, the odds of eventually becoming law are slim at best, no matter how reasonable they are.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that if you are into Twitter, you can check out our updates at http://twitter.com/ImmigrationRoad. Sometimes it is easier to do a short tweet, and still get the message out, than to write a full blog entry. This is not to say that we are giving up on this blog, in fact it is quite the contrary, but Twitter does have its advantages. So if you have an account, please follow us (ImmigrationRoad) for some quick updates.

Employment-Based First, Fourth and Fifth Preferences
For January 2010, all EB1, EB4 and EB5 categories remain current.

Employment-Based Second Preferences (EB-2)
All EB2 countries other than India and China are still current in January. For India-born applicants, the cutoff date is still 01/22/2005 – no change from the December 2009 visa bulletin. Applicants from mainland China saw their PD cut-off date advancing just one month, to 05/01/2005.

Employment-Based Third Preferences (EB-3)
The situation is not much better for EB-3; although all countries of chargeability moved forward, it was a 1 or 2-month advance across the board. For January, EB3 Worldwide, Philippines and China stand at 08/01/2002, while Mexico is one month behind at 07/01/2002, and India trailing by one year at 06/22/2001.

EB-3 Other Workers category has the same PD cutoff date for all countries: 06/01/2001.

How come EB cutoff dates didn’t move in recent months?
The Department of State offered an explanation in the January Visa Bulletin: At the end of FY 2009, which ended on September 30, 2009, many EB categories were “unavailable.” So when FY-2010 visas were released during October and November, the demand was very high because of the large number of eligible I-485 cases. USCIS was also processing green card applications at a fast pace, and may have pre-adjudicated many of them, which resulted a high depletion rate of visa numbers for the first quarter.

With older cases now near completion, another batch of visa numbers are being released, which is the reason why January has started to see some forward movement.

Projections for cut-off date movement for the remainder of FY-2010
The Department of State offered some predictions on visa availabilities from now to September. These projections are helpful in many ways, but should be treated as just estimates.

• EB-1 is likely to remain current for all countries of chargeability throughout FY-2010.
• EB-2, other than India and China, is also likely to remain current.
• EB-2 China and India will continue to be oversubscribed, and may even become “unavailable” if high demand depletes available visa numbers before the end of September.However, if there are unused visa numbers from a particular category during a calendar quarter, they may be made available to China and India (or other oversubscribed counties) without regard to per-country limitation. This is usually referred to as visa “rollover” or “spill-over” in the immigration community.In case of visa rollover, the same cutoff date is applied to each country receiving the extra visa numbers. So if EB2 India is still more retrogressed than China when that occurs, more visa numbers may go to EB2 India because there are more applicants with earlier priority dates.
• EB-3 is expected to move forward but continue to have cut-off dates for all countries. For this reason it is unlikely there will be any visa numbers unused.

In summary, DOS projects the following cutoff date movement for the remainder of FY2010 (best case scenario)

Family-based visa bulletin projections
Cutoff date movement in the family preferences has been relatively fast recently and DOS expects the trend to continue for at least a few more months. The reason is that fewer applicants are proceeding with their consular processing cases, as well as the low volume of FB adjustment of status cases. However, DOS warns that the movement may slow or even stop at some point, and certain categories may retrogress further if demand picks up.

OMB: More applications mean more fees. Can you hire more people or something, with the additional income?

USCIS: No.

OMB: What do you mean no? USCIS is funded by immigration fees; every extra application comes with extra payment, so what are you doing with the money?

USCIS: I don’t know. But if I can raise application fees by 40%, we’ll be alright.

OMB: OK.

Two years later:

USCIS: Mr. OMB, we are getting fewer applications so we are running out of money.

OMB: What are you talking about? Application fee is collected to cover the application processing. If you don’t have that many applications, what do you need that money for?

USCIS: I don’t know. But if I can raise application fees by 40%, we’ll be alright.

OMB: OK.

Two more years later:

USCIS: Mr. OMB…

OMB: OK.

(I know, maybe I’m being too harsh on USCIS. But if you raise fees when application volume spikes, or drops, something doesn’t add up.)

What are your chances of winning the green card lottery?

Each year there are millions of people participating in the program. DV-2010, for example, received 13.6 million qualified entries. The total number of applicants should have been much higher because some of them were rejected for a variety of reasons. Out of 13.6 million, only 102800 were selected randomly by a computer, i.e., winning the lottery. That turns out to be about 1 in every 270 people.

There are only 50,000 diversity visas available each year. So half of the 102800 lottery winners will not get a green card after all. The reason Department of State selected more applicants is that some of them may not proceed with actual visa application, and some may miss the deadline, or see their applications rejected.

So for DV-2010, one lucky winner out of 540 eligible applicants actually got a green card. Not a great percentage, but not too bad either. Here is a more detailed breakdown, using DOS data:

Note that different geographic regions may have slightly different odds, and it fluctuates every year depending on entry volume. Also countries with high immigration rate to the U.S. are excluded from the lottery, meaning that natives from India, China, Brazil, UK, Canada and several other countries are not eligible to participate in the DV program.

The online entry registration period for DV-2011 will end on Monday, November 30, 2009. If you are interested and eligible, don’t wait for the last minute. And if you are selected, submit your visa application as soon as possible to increase your chances of securing a green card.

Usually dependents’ adjustment of status (green card) applications are approved together with the primary application, or within a short period of time. Sometimes, however, there may be a significant delay of several months or more. This could be caused by additional processing of RFE, prolonged security checks, etc. If this is the case there is not much you can do rather than waiting.

However, sometimes the delay is caused by the separation of your AOS application from your spouse’s or parent’s I-485. In this case you really want to contact USCIS and bring up the matter with the service center.

The CIS Ombudsman is now looking into this issue. In an update posted today, the Ombudsman asks that if 30 days have passed after a principal’s I-485 was approved, and your derivative I-485 is still pending, you may send a request to his office for investigation. To do so, you should submit the following evidence to cisombudsman.publicaffairs@dhs.gov:

• DHS Form 7001,
• A scanned copy of the principal applicant’s I-485 approval notice,
• A scanned copy of the Form I-485 receipt notice for the derivative,
• A scanned copy of the I-140 immigrant petition approval notice (if employment-based), and
• Any other evidence that is pertinent to the case.

In your email, please note in the subject line: “Unapproved Derivative I-485.”

If the Ombudsman does help you obtain I-485 approval, please leave a comment below or send us an email.

The receipt of demand from Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices has far exceeded their earlier indications of cases eligible for immediate processing. As a result, it has been necessary to hold most of the Employment cut-off dates for November. At this time, it is not possible to provide any estimates regarding future cut-off date movements.

EB2 China will move forward by one week, while EB2 India stays steady at January 22, 2005.

EB3 China is the only category that will experience a rather sizable movement: from February 22 to June 1, 2002. Mexico EB3 will advance one month to June 1, 2002.

Certain religious workers and EB5 pilot programs are “unavailable,” awaiting legislative actions.

Below is a visa bulletin graph for employment-based third preference categories. Y-axis represents visa retrogression, in number of years.

The “pending I-485 data” posted on the new uscis.gov website is exactly what we have been waiting for. The i-485 inventory chart not only displays the total number of pending green card applications, but is broken down by priority date, preference category and country of origin. These three levels of details determine your position in the waiting line, and can give you a much better estimate of when your adjustment of status (green card) application will be processed.

1. Country of Origin

There are essentially five lines for employment-based green cards, separated by country of chargeability. The five lines are China, India, Mexico, the Phillipines, and All Other Countries (a.k.a. Rest of World – ROW). The monthly visa bulletin, which determines who is eligible for a visa number, releases visas based on chargeability. Historically China, India, Mexico and the Phillipines are “over-subscribed” countries, meaning there are more applicants from these countries than visa numbers available each year. As a result, these countries are tracked separately in the visa bulletin and USCIS’ i-485 inventory report.

2. Preference Category

Each of the five country-specific lines is further divided by preference categories. For example, EB-1 priority workers, EB-2 professionals with advanced degrees, EB-3 skilled workers, etc. The average waiting time for green card varies dramatically from one preference to another. USCIS did an excellent job by compiling and also presenting the data in the reports.

3. Priority Date

A priority date is when the green card process officially starts, which is usually the date when labor certification or I-140 is filed. Your priority date (PD) determines your position in the line, for your EB category and country of chargeability. This is the one piece of information that tells you exactly how many people are in front of you. USCIS breaks the total number of pending I-485 cases down to each month of a given year based on priority date.

How do I use the green card tracker?

Suppose you are from China, have a priority date of March 2007, and your immigrant petition is in EB2, you can see from the chart below that 786 applicants with a priority date in the same month and year as yours are waiting in line in the EB2 China category. You don’t have to know how many of the 786 people are in front you, because quite likely all of you will become eligible for a visa on the same day.

Now the more important question is how many people have a priority date earlier than yours. Again from the chart, you simply add up all the numbers before March 2007:

1 + 1 +2 + 13 + 20 + 35 + 123 + 4,084 + 8,581 + 743 + 671 = 14274

So there are a total of 14274 applicants from China in EB-2 category who are in front you in the waiting line for green card. You can’t find this level of detail and precision anywhere else.

How do I know when my green card will be approved?

Unfortunately you don’t know that yet, at least not accurately, since this is the first time USCIS published such report. USCIS plans to update the green card tracker every quarter. So after the next one, you will know how many people ahead of you (or behind you, for some reason) have received their green card or otherwise left the line. Comparing that with the Visa Bulletin, you will have a better idea of how much longer you have to wait for your turn.

Pending I-485 Adjustment of Status Applications based on Priority Date for China EB-2:

From the DHS leadership journal and various speeches made by government officials, people had the impression that the new online status system would achieve two major objectives:

1. Identify the current processing step of an immigration case, i.e. let a customer know what has been done, what is being worked on and what is coming next on their application; and,
2. Provide an estimated waiting time before a case can be adjudicated, i.e. let a customer know “how many people are waiting in line or how long it may be before USCIS can process and approve his application.”

USCIS has done a fairly good job for No. 1 (case status), but not nearly enough for No. 2 (waiting time).

The case status tool now displays seven steps: Acceptance, Initial Review, Request for Evidence (RFE), Testing and Interview, Decision, Post Decision Activity, and Document Production or Oath Ceremony. Below is an example of the RFE step (see more examples here):

The benefit of this format is that all processing steps are displayed in one window – people who are not familiar with the immigration process  are now able to figure out what steps have been completed and what is likely to come next. For others, especially high-tech workers under employment based categories, this change is far less appealing because most of them understand the green card work flow quite well already.

As it stands now, a new status update will replace the old one, and if a case has reached the next step, previous ones will be grayed out. A better way would be to keep all status updates in the system until at least some time after the case has been adjudicated. This way it also acts as a personal journal for the applicant. The data are stored in the USCIS database anyway, why not make them  useful?

The new alert function via text messaging is nice and geeky, but doesn’t deserve so much spotlight in my opinion.

Regardless of how case status is presented, what is critical to immigrants is that the information in the system is complete and up to date. For example:

• Does the system reflect a RFE that has been responded to?
• Is background check information included in the report?
• Does a rescheduled appointment or interview get updated?
• If a case is at a certain stage, does it mean all previous steps have been completed? In another word, does RFE mean FBI name check is cleared? If an interview is scheduled, does it mean all RFE’s have been processed?

The waiting time report, implemented as National Volume and Trends on the new website, is far from what everyone expected. We will discuss it in a separate post.

It is worth mentioning that USCIS redesigned the website in a hurry, and completed the bulk of new development in roughly three months. So it is probably unrealistic to expect a complete overhaul. It is an excellent start, however, and USCIS deserves credit for that. But we certainly hope that the efforts don’t stop here. USCIS.gov is one of the most popular government websites (6 million visitors monthly), so hopefully the agency will have the support to continue to make it better.