US Immigration News

We remind you that this year's Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, better known as the Green Card Lottery, will close on November 2nd 2013 so, if you want to enter, you must apply by then. Every year, 50,000 US green cards, or permanent resident visas, are issued to successful applicants under the green card lottery. Applications must be made online. There is no fee.

The latest figures from the Pew Hispanic Research Center suggest that the number of illegal aliens living in the US has been rising in recent years. This is likely to cause Congressional opponents of immigration reform to harden their stance against immigration bills in Washington this autumn.

The Pew Hispanic Research Center says that it believes that the number of illegal immigrants in the US has risen by 400,000 since 2009. In 2009, according to the Pew Hispanic Trends Project, there were 11.3m people living illegally in the US.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued a warning about a phone scam being carried out in the US at the moment. The victims are people who are currently waiting for a response from USCIS. It has warned people expecting contact from USCIS never to make any payments to anyone claiming to be from USCIS over the phone.

It seems that the scammers have somehow got hold of the names of people who are expecting a response from USCIS. This makes them exceptionally vulnerable to being conned.

A spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has said that the processing of immigration paperwork should not be greatly affected by the failure of Congress to agree a federal budget for 2013/14. Christopher Bentley told American broadcaster ABC that USCIS staff is 95% paid for by fees charged and so the department is not likely to have to lay staff off.

Supporters of radical immigration reform in the US are trying to persuade President Obama to use his presidential powers to cut through the 'gridlock' in Washington and introduce immigration reform. They have urged the President to act to allow illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship.

FWD.us, the online pro-immigration pressure group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and other titans of the IT industry, has held a 'Day of Action' to put pressure on members of the US House of Representatives to back immigration reform legislation this autumn.