Green Card Lottery Begins Soon!
The Green Card Lottery, the annual congressionally-mandated immigration diversity initiative, begins its registration period on October 2, 2012 at noon Eastern Daylight Time. This particular type of visa is unusual in that it has relatively few requirements for entry. Also, the period of time it takes for the visa to be granted is shortened significantly. It only takes two years to be granted a green card lottery visa instead of up to 14 years for some other green card paths.
The state department has yet to fill the green card quota from last year, so there will be a re-drawing to find new winners on October 22, 2012.
Arizona Politicians Attempt to Appeal Additional Provisions
Arizona politicians—particularly Arizona Governor Jan Brewer—are attempting to appeal certain provisions of Senate Bill 1070 which was all but entirely struck down by the United States Supreme Court. The only provision of that bill was what is now being called the “Show Me Your Papers” provision which requires Arizona police to check the immigration status of people they pull over if they suspect them to be illegally in the country. Jan Brewer currently supports a related provision that would make it a crime to harbor undocumented immigrants. Arizona is the center of the immigration debate in the United States and the home of some of the country’s strictest immigration laws.
Deferred Action Continues: New USCIS Website
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, President Obama’s effort at enacting immigration reforms during his term, has been accepting applications since mid-August, granted the first deferrals about two weeks ago and have re-designed their DACA website. Generally regarded as being either a noble experiment or a superficial election ploy depending upon which side of the aisle one is on, DACA attempts to de-criminalize undocumented immigrants who did not intentionally break the law when they entered the country as children. The new page on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website offers a variety of useful information for potential applicants and an instructional video.