Since October 1994, United States has issued 50,000 permanent Green Cards annually through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program. If you are selected, then you can reside and work permanently in the United States. The registration period for the Green Card via the Diversity Program (DV2010) is from October 2 – December 1, 2008.
Requirements
In order to apply for the Diversity Green Card, there are certain requirements that must be met. Applicants born in any of the following countries cannot apply:
Brazil, Canada, China (mainland) – Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are eligible,
Colombia, Dominican Republic, EL Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico,
Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, South Korea,
United Kingdom (and its dependent territories) – Ireland and Northern Ireland are eligible,
Vietnam
If you were born in one of the countries listed above, you may still qualify if your spouse or your parents were born in an eligible country.
In addition to being born in an eligible country, applicants must have either a high school education or its equivalent, or within the past five years have two years of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience.
One entry per applicant may be submitted during the registration period. Multiple entries will disqualify applicants from diversity Green Card program.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently completed a multi-year redesign of the naturalization test. The revised test, with an emphasis on the fundamental concepts of American democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, will help encourage citizenship applicants to learn and identify with the basic values we all share as Americans.
Why the tests were redesigned
The purpose of redesigned tests is to ensure that naturalization applicants have uniform, consistent testing experiences nationwide, and that the civics test can effectively assess whether applicants have a meaningful understanding of U.S. government and history. Following a basic U.S. history and civics curriculum, the redesigned test will serve as an important instrument to encourage civic learning and patriotism among prospective citizens.
The new tests will consists of updated English reading and writing prompts, and a list of 100 new history and government questions. The resulting redesigned test was publicly introduced on September 27, 2007. Naturalization applicants will begin taking the revised test on October 1, 2008.
The US State Department has decided that the soon-to-be issued U.S. Passport Card will suffice for employment verification purposes, and will be accepted on the Form I-9. The E-Verify Program – an online system that verifies an individual’s work eligibility – used by employers will also accept the new U.S. Passport Card.
The U.S. Passport Card was designed as a response to new border travel requirements, which require U.S. citizens to carry both a state issued identification card (e.g. drivers’ license) as well as a birth certificate or a U.S. Passport in order to cross U.S. land borders between the United States, Mexico, Canada, Bahamas and the Caribbean. The U.S. Passport Card holders will not need to carry the two forms of identifications mentioned above.
The U.S. Passport Card is a more convenient and cheaper alternative to a standard U.S. Passport for individuals crossing the United States border from the aforementioned countries.
As of February 2008, applications for the U.S. Passport Card became available and close to
half a million people have already applied for the card. The U.S. Passport Card is wallet sized, and is expected to become popular with individuals living in border towns and cruise passengers. The card is valid for 10 years, and is only applicable for land and sea travel. The U.S. Passport Card is cannot be used for international air travel, or any other travel requiring a U.S. passport.
The card is expected to be available to applicants in the fall of 2008.
On September 24, 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) publicly announced a final rule which establishes a new fee structure to adjust the SEVP school certification petition fees and the SEVIS I-901 fees for foreign citizens seeking to become academic or vocational students, or exchange visitors.
The fees for those participating in the Student Exchange Visitor Program have been updated as follows:
- School certification fees. The new fees are $1,700 for school certification petition and $655 for each site certification visit.
- Application fees for non-immigrants seeking to become academic (F visa) or vocational (M visa) students, or exchange visitors (J visa). Fees for F or M students will now be $200 and $180 for most J exchange visitors. The fee for each J exchange visitor seeking admission as an au pair, camp counselor, or summer work/travel program participant will remain unchanged at $35.
SEVP will begin school re-certifications to help verify and further educate school administrators on program requirements. Schools currently participating in SEVP will not be required to pay additional fees to recertify under this new fee structure.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced August 15, 2008 a series of proposed rule changes that will streamline procedures for hiring workers under the H-2B program. These changes are being proposed are to review and improve temporary worker visa programs using existing authorities. The proposed rule, which has been sent to the Federal Register, supplements the extensive reforms of the H-2B program already proposed by the Department of Labor in its proposed rule published on May 22.
The H-2B nonimmigrant temporary worker program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary non-agricultural temporary jobs for which U.S. workers are not available. The proposed changes to the H-2B program, discussed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on June 10, will encourage and facilitate the lawful employment of foreign temporary workers while ensuring the integrity of the H-2B program. The proposed rule is designed to remove unnecessary limitations on H-2B employers while both preventing fraud and abuse and protecting the rights of temporary workers. The proposed rule will:
- Reduce from six months to three months the time H-2B workers must wait outside the United States before they are eligible to re-obtain status under the H or L classification
- Require employer attestations on the scope of the H-2B employment and the use of recruiters to locate H-2B workers
- Crack down on employers and recruiters who impose fees on prospective H-2B workers in connection with or as a condition of an offer of H-2B employment
- Require an approved temporary labor certification in connection with all H-2B petitions
- Preclude, with limited exception, the change of the employment start date after the grant of the temporary labor certification
- Require employers to notify DHS when H-2B workers fail to show up for work, are terminated, or abscond from the worksite
- Change the definition of “temporary employment” to provide that a job is of a temporary nature when the worker will end in the near, definable future and to eliminate the requirement that employers show “extraordinary circumstances” to be eligible to hire H-2B workers where a one-time need for the workers is longer than one year but shorter than three years
- Prohibit the approval of H-2B petitions for nationals of countries that are determined to be consistently refusing or unreasonably delaying repatriation of their nationals
- Establish a land-border exit system pilot program, which requires H-2B workers admitted through a port of entry participating in the pilot H-program to also depart through a participating port and to present designated biographic and/or biometric information upon departure.
USCIS will accept public comments 30 days following publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register.
