Some of you may have noticed that in our Immigration News section, certain outbound links may be pointing to something like:
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
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
The new green card comes with a bunch of enhanced features. Although most of them are designed for security purposes, the implementation of RFID – Radio Frequency IDentification – is rather for improving efficiency. In fact, if anything, RFID might have undercut an otherwise more secure green card.
With RFID embedded in the new green card, a CBP officer is now able to read your card while you are still standing in line at the airport. This, hopefully, can get you through a port of entry a bit faster. But the problem is, anyone with a sophisticated reader can read the same information as well, all from a distance without you even knowing it.
Before you push the panic button, however,
Ever since USCIS started releasing the pending I-485 inventory data last September, there has been skepticism all over the Internet. Some, including immigration attorneys, have gone as far as claiming the data being close to useless.
Well, I think that is too far.
Sure, the data is incomplete. But it is something we never had before. Prior to September of 2009, if you had a pending I-485, all you knew was that you were standing in line waiting for the next visa bulletin. Now, with the inventory, you can find out approximately how many people are actually ahead of you. Even if USCIS doesn’t count all the pending cases, you now have a general idea of how long the line is, and more importantly, what position you are in.
USCIS has recently launched The BEACON – the official USCIS blog. Unlike the DHS Leadership Journal, this one is all about immigration. It is also open for comments, which is a great way for readers (you) to get involved. For what it is worth, your comments will be read by someone at USCIS, because they have to review all of them.
However, it doesn’t mean you should vent your frustration on whatever post they publish, although we understand your urge to do so. What is a better way than posting on their own blog if you are unhappy with their services? But it doesn’t help anyone if most comments left by immigrants are essentially “USCIS sucks!” or something of that nature. In my personal opinion, we should give USCIS credit for starting a blog in the first place. And we want to encourage them to continue opening up more communication channels in the future. So if at all possible, please try to comment on relevant posts only, and offer constructive suggestions rather than simply demand for better services.
USCIS: Mr. OMB, we are getting tons of applications so we are falling behind. 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 … Read more
Finally, USCIS delivered! Now you have an official USCIS green card tracker. 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 … Read more
USCIS has now unveiled the much anticipated case status checking system. Although it is noticeably better than its predecessor, it fell short of expectations. 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: Identify the current processing … Read more
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services kept its promise and launched a redesigned website today, one day ahead of schedule. We will review the much anticipated new site in more details and publish a series of posts in the next few days. In this post we are glad to report that the search function of the … Read more
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently placed a purchase order of $3.1 million for additional green cards. According to LaserCard, recipient of the order, these permanent resident cards are to be delivered by December 31, 2009. I don’t know exactly how much it costs to produce a piece of green card, but 3 … Read more
