What to do after winning the Green Card Lottery: step by step instructions

From 15 May 2018 of the year you can check lottery results Green Card 2019 — ForumDaily I told all about the lottery in questions and answers. However inlottery win Green Card It does not mean that they will automatically give you a residence permit in America. To obtain a cherished immigration visa in your passport, you need to go through a few more steps, during which you can face unpleasant surprises. How to avoid mistakes that may cost you green cards? Step-by-step instructions for obtaining a US residence permit from ForumDaily.

Winning is only the beginning.

Every year, the US government allocates 55 thousands of immigrant visas that are raffled Green Card. There are always many more applicants - on average up to 9 million applicants participate in the draw every year. Despite the fact that there are 55 thousand visas, more people always receive notification of winnings.

The reason is that not everyone brings what has been done to the end: someone is not ready to bear the expenses associated with obtaining a visa, someone does not pass a medical examination or an interview, some of the applicants are refused because of incorrectly prepared documents. Therefore, the news that you won the green card - this is not a reason to celebrate. This is only a signal to start a marathon about a year long.

So, if you are among the lucky ones and become the winner of the lottery green cards Don’t rush to pack your bags, quit your job and throw farewell parties right now. The process of obtaining an immigration visa for Ruslana Yurina from Moscow lasted almost a year after she learned of the win in May 2013. “We collected and sent all the required documents in 2 weeks,” recalls Ruslana. “But only 10 months later, in March 2014, we learned that the interview would take place in early April. It lasted about 10 minutes. We were immediately told that they were giving us green cards. Exactly a week later, passports with visas were brought to our home.”

A month later, Ruslana and her husband flew to Denver, where they still live happily. Their family has since doubled in size - the couple had twins.

How to find out about winning

The results of the green card draw are published on the official Online US visa center - the same place where they fill out forms for participation in the lottery. If you receive a letter with an offer to find out the answer on some alternative site, and especially for money, know that this is a letter from scammers. No one personally contacts the participants and winners of the lottery; you need to find out all the information about your status yourself.

Enter your confirmation number on the website, issued after registering for the lottery. If on the page that opens you see a letter with a barcode and your data - you win! However, before receiving the coveted green card, you need to go through several stages as quickly as possible.

Step-by-step instructions on what to do after receiving notification of a win

1. Fill in the visa application form

The site Consular Electronic Application Center you need to fill immigration visa application form form DS-260. It is filled in English. In the questionnaire you need to specify personal data, marital status, provide information about the place of work, study, criminal record.

If from the moment of registration for participation in the lottery you have changed the family composition (got married, gave birth to a child), then new members of the family should always indicate in their form DS-260, otherwise you can be disqualified.

For each family member - a separate form of DS-260. This is an important nuance, and if you fill out one form for the whole family, you immediately leave the “get a green card” marathon.

When the DS-260 form is full, the exposure page should be saved on the computer and then printed. It, among other documents, you need to take with you to the interview. The date of the interview will be sent to you after you fill out the DS-260 form.

Fill in the questionnaire better by myself. For example, Riga's Elena Cherevchenko did not receive a green card in 2013 due to contacting intermediaries. She collected all the necessary documents, underwent a medical examination, but during the interview she was in for a big trouble.

“I was relaxed during the interview, joked, smiled, it seemed that everything was going like clockwork,” says Elena. “When I talked about where I studied and about my specialty related to fish diseases, I said that at the company where they helped me fill out the application form, they were also surprised at what kind of education I received. When I realized that I had done a great stupidity by saying that I hadn’t even seen the form and that it had been completely filled out for me, it was already too late. 3 years have passed and I still worry about that stupid moment.”

Igor Veizberg also witnessed a similar picture. He has been living with his family in New York for more than 15 years - he came with a green card.

Igor’s family traveled from Odessa to Warsaw for the interview. “Several immigration officers and several applicants were sitting in one room,” Igor recalls. — My wife and I were asked if we wanted to go to America. We answered that we wanted it. Our interview ended here, we signed the papers that were given to us. The same thing happened at the next table - there a young guy was talking to the officer, who was also handed papers to sign. And then the officer asked why the signature on the form and the current autograph were different - and in the 2000s, the form for participation in the lottery was filled out manually and sent by mail. The guy hesitated and said that his uncle filled out the form for him. The officer immediately crossed out the sheet that the guy had signed and replied that he did not receive a visa to America.”

2. Wait for an answer

First you will receive a letter with the following text: Has been received and routed to the appropriate group. This is a standard letter which means that your visa application has been received. And in 7-10 days, another email will arrive, this time addressed to you personally.

Here are options for what can be written in it:

Your forms have been processed. If you received such a letter, it means that your questionnaires are in the processing stage, which can last up to 4 months.

It will not affect the processing of your case. This means that, filling out the questionnaire, you did not specify the number of your business, but at the same time your application is still accepted for processing.

KCC to begin the processing of your case. It means that Kentucky Consular Center waiting for your questionnaires, but not yet received them.

The information. This means that you indicated in the request information that is different from what you gave when you filled out the form for participation in the lottery.

The DS 230 Part 1 You submitted for the principal was incomplete. This means that in your questionnaires found inaccuracies that need to be corrected.

It received a copy of the amount of mail processed at a time. or It is acceptable for your visa processing. If you received a letter in which one of these phrases appears, then your questionnaire has already been received, processed, and within a few weeks you will be given the date of the interview.

Your case number is now current for interview processing. This letter comes to those who find out the date of the interview in a few days.

Has been scheduled at ... In the letter with such text you will see the date of the interview itself.

If you want to go to the Kentucky Consular Center yourself (Kentucky Consular Center), where all questionnaires are processed, and to find out at what stage your case is now, you can send a request to the email address: [email protected] or call 1-606-526-7500 from 7:30 a.m. to 16 p.m. At the beginning of the conversation, you must immediately give the case number (Case number), the country in which the questionnaire was filled in, the name, surname and date of birth of the winner of the lottery.

3. Collect documents

Bye-bye Kentucky Consular Center examines your questionnaires and sets the date of the interview, do not waste time. Collect and translate into English the documents that you need. All documents that are not in English, must be accompanied by a certified translation. No notarization or apostille is required.

You need to prepare originals and translations of the following documents:

1. Passport
2. Birth certificate
3. Diplomas confirming education
4. Employment history
5. Help that you do not have a criminal record. If you have lived in several countries, such references are needed from each country. If you have a criminal record, you can still qualify for a green card, but be sure to provide a certificate that you have already been punished.
6. Marriage / divorce certificates
7. For those who served in the army - military ID
8. Statement of account
9. Documents on the valuation of real estate
10. Help with the work that you are an employee / owner of the company.

4. Check your health

When you were given the date of the interview - it's time to get a medical examination. This can be done only in special certified centers whose addresses can be found at Online. The cost of this procedure is on average $ 215 for each family member planning to immigrate (in different countries the price may differ by $ 10-15), and vaccination is paid separately.

Passing a medical commission is needed to determine if you or someone from a family member has any diseases from the list that restricts entry to the United States. It includes, in particular, diseases of a mental nature, the active form of tuberculosis, leprosy, and others. Before 2010, HIV was included in the list, but now this virus does not interfere with obtaining a visa.

The list of diseases that impede obtaining an immigration visa, consists of two lists that can be found here и here.

After passing medical examination you receive a sealed envelope, which must be handed over to the consul during the interview.

5. Pass the interview

The medical examination is over, the envelope for the consul is in hand, the interview date has been set. At the interview, you will be required to provide originals and English translations of all documents, the results of the medical examination and the invitation to the interview itself. On site, at the embassy, ​​you need to pay a visa fee - $330 for each family member. But this is not a guarantee that the coveted US visa is in your hands. An interview is no less important a stage than the preparation of documents or a medical examination. However, there is no need to specially prepare for it or read any scientific treatises or everyday advice on the Internet. You will be asked standard everyday questions.

The main goals of the interview are to make sure that the people who applied were the ones who came for the interview, to take fingerprints and check them with the database, to look at the results of the medical examination and to check the presence of all documents.

A former Muscovite and now a resident of Denver, Ruslana Yurina, recalls that during an interview she and her husband were asked to take turns answering questions about where they met and what the apartment they live in looked like: “Each was asked only a couple of questions, and then both were asked if we were sure we wanted to immigrate to the US.” As Ruslana later found out, those married couples who were recently married are separated for interviews - to make sure that it is not a fictitious marriage.

If you have been interviewed, you will be granted a semi-annual visa. It is during 6 months that all family members, or only the main applicant, will need to enter the United States, otherwise the visa will be canceled. Also, after passing the interview, you will be given a sealed envelope that you need to give to the officer at the airport.

An important point: if the main applicant is not able to travel to the US, then without him the family also can not enter the country.

This is exactly what happened to Andrey, who asked not to use his last name. Andrey is a Muscovite, a plastic surgeon, a successful doctor. I never thought about leaving for the USA. But my parents, sister and close friend played the lottery for 3 years, and then they persuaded Andrey to submit an application. What follows is a classic of the genre. It was Andrey who won the green card. Together with his family, he went through the entire registration procedure, and when it was time to fly to the USA, as luck would have it, he was at the peak of his work schedule. The family had to wait until Andrei could find time to travel to America. As a result, a month before the end of the six-month period, the family flew to Chicago, where their friends live. And Andrei still has not made a final decision whether he wants to stay in America.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How an illegal immigrant can be legalized in the USA

10 ways to stay in the USA

How to get a green card through marriage

How to get US citizenship, if the spouse - American

Abandoning the American Dream: the story of those who returned to their homeland

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