US Immigration News

January 7 next year will be the final date for Green Card lottery applications, so if you are planning to apply you better hurry up.

Each year, the State Department conducts a lottery through its Diversity Visa program to distribute applications for 50,000 immigrant visas.

For more information about the Green Card lottery, please see our Green Card lottery page.

A homosexual Nigerian man who fled his native country last year andwas held for 11 months while he awaited asylum in the United States haswon the right to stay. The Nigerian fled to America after an angry mobmurdered his second partner upon discovering that the two men wereromantically involved.

He arrived in New York withoutimmigration documents and was taken into custody by Immigration andCustoms Enforcement. The gay advocacy group Immigration Equality soonmet with the refugee and secured pro-bono legal representation for him.

A federal judge has granted class action suit status, nationwide, to a lawsuit aginst U.S. immigration officials for stalling green card applications.

Thousands of immigrants are now able to challenge the American government's procedures and performance in the processing of green card applications.

If your application has been delayed, you may be able to join the lawsuit.

For more information about US Green Card see our US Green Card page.

EU officials met recently with their U.S. counterparts to discuss an extension of the US Visa Waiver Program, which at the moment allows nationals from 15, mainly western EU members, of the 25 member strong union to enter the United States without a visa.

In the case of Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Cyprus and Malta, their citizens must still apply for a visa. Still, EU officials say a solidarity clause might be invoked, demanding visas for U.S. citizens regardless of which EU country they would like to travel to.

Starting Oct. 26 this year, each person wishing to visit the United States must have either a Machine Readable Passport (MRP) and a visa waiver form or a valid visa issued by U.S. authorities before traveling.

If you intend to bring your child, or children, they too must have MRPs and visa waiver forms. Nationals from some countries may only enter the United States if they have a valid visa.

An MRP has the holder’s personal details, such as name, date of birth, nationality and passport number contained in two lines of text at the bottom of the photo page.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it has received its congressionally-mandated limit for H-1B applications for FY2005. No more H-1B applications subject to the FY2005 cap will be accepted.

The annual cap has been set at 65,000 petitions, including 6,800 of which are reserved under the H-1B program for the US - Chile and US - Singapore Free Trade Agreement allocations.

USCIS will, for the rest of FY2005, follow the procedures defined in the notice of February 25, 2004 Federal Register at 69 FR8675, which addresses the FY2004 cap. These include: