USCIS News: Green Card Lottery Announcement
On 04.30.13 | In USCIS Blog, By USCIS Info
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On Wednesday, May 1, 2013, the winners of the 2014 Green Card Lottery will be announced through the State Department’s website. By the end of the summer, the USCIS will receive an influx of immigration applicants from those lucky winners.
Although not all of the winners of the Green Card Lottery will be able to pass through the entire process, the chance afforded to them by the Diversity Visa program is often the only path to permanent residency for them. 
Additionally, the acceptable countries-of-origin for the 2015 Green Card Lottery will be announced on May 1, and potential immigrants looking to apply for the lottery can begin to plan their registration process.
Only the citizens of certain countries can apply for entry into the Green Card Lottery. These countries are considered eligible if they have a disproportionately small number of immigrants coming into the United States in any of the past five years.
This is the part of the program where the term ‘diversity’ comes from. The intent of the program is to diversify the national profile of immigrants in the United States and give some folks, who might not otherwise have a chance to immigrate, the potential to migrate to the US.
Green Card Lottery registrants who filed in 2012 can use the confirmation numbers they received at the end of the registration process to check whether or not they have won a place in the Green Card Lottery.
Remember: the confirmation number and the name of the individual who is associated with the number must be entered into the website exactly.
Applicants are discouraged from attempting to recover their confirmation numbers by either re-applying or asking for a copy of the confirmation number from the Department of State. Re-applying for the Green Card Lottery will disqualify both applications. The Department of State does not retain records of applicants’ confirmation numbers.
Infopass Appointment EAD
On 01.08.13 | In USCIS Blog, By USCIS Info
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Infopass is the system that is used for immigrants to schedule appointments with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Employment Authorization Document (EAD) is considered a routine matter and you likely do not need to use Infopass to schedule an appointment.
Appointments made with the USCIS must be of a particular nature, whether it is life-threatening or extremely complicated. Most situations and forms don’t need an appointment like checking case statuses, getting Employment authorization or renewal or replacement of a Green Card.
There is one circumstance where you can make an appointment with Infopass regarding an EAD. If the USCIS does not return a decision to you about your Employment Authorization, you can schedule an appointment to ask why it has not yet been granted.
The Employment Authorization Document (EAD) is a credit card sized document that allows non-immigrant, non-resident visitors to the United States work. There are some visa classes that do not require this document, like permanent residency. Green Card holders do not need to have EADs because the right to work is implicit in the Green Card.
You can schedule an appointment with Infopass at any time online.
You can choose to schedule your appointment in one of the many languages that the platform supports such as Arabic, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Korean, Tagalog, Creole, Russian, Portuguese, French, Polish and, of course, English.
You will then be prompted to choose from one of three buttons. “Schedule an appointment” if you would like to begin your scheduling process. “Cancel your Appointment” will let you cancel your appointment (cancelling or rescheduling your appointment does not come with any related fee). You can also click on the third button for more information about the Infopass system.
Follow the website prompts and be sure to answer all of the questions accurately and completely to schedule a successful appointment!
Increasing Immigrant Small Business Owners in the United States
On 06.20.12 | In USCIS Blog, By USCIS Info
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The Fiscal Policy Institute recently conducted a survey about the US immigrants. Through that survey it has found that almost 18 percent of small businesses in America are owned by US immigrants. These small businesses belonging to the US immigrants have lesser than 100 employees. Most small businesses have between 1-99 employees, yet form an important part of America’s economy. The report also shows that out of the total US population, 13 percent of the US residents are people who were born outside the United States. The foreign nationals account for 13 percent of the overall population of America.
Immigrant entrepreneurship in America is widely accepted and is considered to be an important aspect of the economic role played by the immigrants. The director of the Fiscal Policy Institute’s Immigration Research Initiative, David Dyssegaard Kallick expressed his views saying that the immigrants are playing an important role in establishing small businesses, which bring new energy to the overall landscape of the United States.
A New York based research organization, in its report states that the US immigrants have started around 538,551 small businesses over the past two decades. The number of small businesses started by the immigrants in America steadily started to increase in the year 2010, where the number of such small businesses rose to 4.9 million. More immigrants from Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries are found to be the owners small business than immigrants from other countries. When compared it was found that immigrants to the United States from Greece own more small businesses than immigrants from Mexico.
Immigrants also play a major role in certain other sectors such as hospitality and leisure sectors. They make up a big share in this sector; they represent up to 28 percent of small businesses in these fields. US immigrants are also found to make up a bigger share of small dry cleaning, taxi and gas station owners. The income of the small business owners in the United States is more than the other US immigrants but their earnings are not more than the native small business owners of the United States. Most immigrants are business owners, but their businesses are smaller.
