January 2010 visa bulletin delivered little to cheer about, but DOS offered some predictions on future visa availability which can be quite helpful. 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 … Read more
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
The Diversity Visa program, often called the green card lottery, is definitely one of the easiest ways to become a permanent resident of the United States. The difficulty, of course, is to win the lottery first. What are your chances of winning the green card lottery? Each year there are millions of people participating in … Read more
If you are a derivative spouse or child of a principal applicant whose I-485 has been approved, but yours is still pending, you may now ask CIS Ombudsman to look into your case. His office will investigate whether your cases have been separated incidentally. Usually dependents’ adjustment of status (green card) applications are approved together … Read more
Apparently USCIS requested tons of visa numbers in October, and the State Department decided to leave EB cutoff dates nearly unchanged for November. 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 … 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
A road sign is a board standing on the side of the road that provides information or instructions to travelers. Whether you are driving to the Grand Canyon, biking to work, or walking to a grocery store, you will see road signs everywhere. They are easy to understand. But if you are marching (or crawling) … Read more
October 2009 visa bulletin – the first for FY 2010 – was released today by the Department of State. Employment-Based Second Preference EB-2 China advanced only two months to March 22, 2005, while India inched ahead to January 22, 2005. Although dissappointing, we still may see quite a few I-485 approvals for applicants with a … Read more
