Green Card lottery

December 5, 2014

What to Do If Your Green card is Approved But Never Received

By Marie Puertollano, Esq.

In the past few months, we have seen an increase in the number of instances when the green card application was approved, but the client never received it in the mail. What should you do in this situation?

Check your status online

First, you will need to go to uscis.gov. Under “Check your case status,” type your I-485 case number, which can be located at the top left corner of the receipt notice. If your case status shows that your green card was delivered, USCIS provides a tracking number from the US Postal Service (USPS) confirming the exact date, hour and zip code where the green card was delivered.

If you have moved and forgot to update your address, you will need to go to your old place of residence and request your green card from the person living at your previous place of residence. It is a crime to steal a green card. On one occasion, a client’s green card was delivered to an old address. The new tenant tore up the envelope with the green card in it, misplaced it, and brought it more than 2 months later. Continue reading

September 28, 2012

Green Card Lottery – Diversity Visa 2014

by Jacob Sapochnick

Get ready DV players! The 2014 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2014) will commence at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012, and will close at noon, EDT, Saturday, November 3rd, 2012. Applicants must submit entries electronically during this registration period using the electronic DV entry form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EDT, on November 3rd, 2012.

Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 and provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants.” Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of 55,000 Diversity Visas each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Fifty-five thousand immigrant visas are set aside for DV immigrants.

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random drawing chooses selectees for Diversity Visas. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. No single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

August 10, 2012

Green Card Lottery -Diversity Visa Program: DV-2014 Entry Update

by Jacob Sapochnick

Online registration for the DV-2014 Program will begin on Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and conclude on Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4). Instructions for the DV 2014 Program are not yet available.

The entry registration period for DV-2013 has ended. The online registration period for the 2013 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2013) began at www.dvlottery.state.gov on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and concluded on Saturday, November 5, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4). Entrants in the Diversity Visa 2013 program may check the status of their entries through the Entrant Status check on the E-DV website beginning on May 1, 2012.

As with many government programs, the diversity immigrant visa program is deceptively simple, and has numerous pitfalls. Rigid technical requirements disqualify many applicants. So-called lucky “winners” face the biggest challenge after they are notified they have been selected. According to Bernard Wolfsdorf, of the 100,021 registrants in the 2012 diversity lottery, slightly more than half were disappointed to discover they were unable to obtain a green card. Some are mortified when they are refused tourist or student visas because they expressed immigrant intent. The disappointment is certain to continue for tens-of-thousands recently announced 2013 lottery “winners”.