US Immigration News

Shortly after Moses Bittok took the oath of citizenship last week, he discovered he won $1.89 million in the Iowa Lottery's Hot Lotto game.

"It's almost like you adopted a country and then they netted you $1.8 million," Bittok said 26 Sept. as he cashed in his ticket. "It doesn't happen anywhere - I guess only in America."

Bittok said he took the citizenship oath at the federal building in Des Moines on 23 Sept., then went shopping with his family. They stopped at a gas station to check his lottery ticket from the Sept. 21 drawing.

Application fees for immigration to the US will go up after 26 Oct. The fee increase was published in 26 Sept.'s edition of the Federal Register by Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

The fee increases range from as little as $5 more to replace a permanent resident card -- which increases the fee to $190 -- to as much as $20 more to obtain a U.S. visa for a child adopted internationally, which will cost $545.

The department said the fees were increased to cover inflation.

Elderly and disabled immigrants are suffering hardships because of restrictions on citizenship applications by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to some US agencies that aid immigrants.

The advocates say applications for citizenship are being delayed by procedural changes that include the ending of an outreach program, more background checks, and increased rejection of medical certificates that allow some applicants to avoid interviews in English and the citizenship exam.

The US Department of State has announced that registration for the 2007 Green Card Lottery, or Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery, will begin at noon on October 5, 2005.

The 2007 Green Card Lottery makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The Immigration Lottery makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting simple, but strict, eligibility requirements.

The Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) will be the sole provider of visa services to applicants for US visas throughout India from Oct. 2005.

Designated branches of HDFC Bank across the country will act as fee collection centres.

"VFS, which is currently offering similar service for the Mumbai consular district, will become the sole provider of visa services to all applicants for US visas in India as of October 3," Miguel Ordonez, acting chief of consular services, the American Consulate General, said.

VISA BULLETIN FOR OCTOBER 2005

IMMIGRANT NUMBERS FOR OCTOBER 2005

A. STATUTORY NUMBERS