Hi folks,

Currently I am in OPT status and have been approved for H1B. I recently also received first letter for DV lottery (case number 15,000) in the US. Have you been in a similar situation I am in? Will hiring an attorney increase my chances of geeting the Green card?

Will appreciate any feedback / suggestions.

Thanks a bunch!

Hey, I am in the similar situation. I did not hire an attorney. I scheduled an appoinment with an Immigration Officer in local USCIS office and they gave me some forms to apply for change of status. You can do this by going to www.uscis.gov and schedule an appoinment using INFOPASS. If you have aleady talked with an attorney, will appreciate if you could share any information.

Good luck!!

Yes I did go to the immigration office and received a bunch of forms.
The officer also said that I have to wait till October 1st, before I can submit the forms to USCIS while applying for the change of status. In the meantime, she asked me to send $375 to the department of state and hold on to the receipt that they send me.

The lawyer confirmed what the immigration officer said, but advised I hire an attorney to do the paperwork.

Are you doing anything differently than I am?

hey guys i m looking for job in virgina around annandale please if you can provide me some links please help

Hey Guys
I was wondering can we really do anything until we get the second letter, I mean scheduling for change of status and such. From what i heard until you get second letter, it doesn't really mean anything and for any case number over 8000 in asia is pretty hard to get second letter, for last couple years the cutoff range for asia was 7500 or so...My case number is in 16000 range and I am in F1 status, I just filled the forms and submitted to kentucky counselor center, but didn't talk to local USCIS officec or anything...

i don't think u need to submit the forms to KCC if you are in the US. You just need to make a payment to the Department of State so that the USCIS can take over the case from KCC.

i'm still confused, i will see another attorney next week

Dev,
Let us know if you get any info from the attorney, but i just followed the instructions that were in the packet, and it clearly said in the steps to follow that first thing to do was to mail the 3 forms to KCC, it was only after getting second letter the person needs to decide whether to talk to USCIS about getting status changed here or go back to country and get the visa stamped.

Hey, the Immigration Officer I talked also told me that I can apply for change of status only after October 1 07 and between September 30 2008. as the DV lottery is for 2008. He recommend me to send certified letter such that it will be confirmed that USCIS received my application. As for attorney, I talked with him he told me that it is number game so he couldnot tell me for sure if that will help. My understanding is our application will be processed based on case number if we were in Nepal. AS we are already here it does not matter and if we send the related document mentioned in the forms that should be good to receive the GC. So I am not planning to spend few hundred bucks on hiring a lawyer. if you get a lawyer and there are things we need to do and for which lawyer is essential, Let me know I will go and hire a lwayer too. Appreciate.

Regards!

Hey No complains,
thanks for the information, so i guess i shouldn't have mailed the forms in to KCC, I will talk to immigration office next week and see if there's still anything that can be done in terms of adjusting the status here only. The KCC forms were so confusing as it asks you if you want to adjust here only and i chose to BCIS option and mailed them in, all this time I was udner the impression they had to be mailed in no matter what. Let's see what the office has to say next week.

As far as I know you can adjust status only after your visa number becomes current. IF you apply for it before your visa# becomes current the application will be returned to you.

For more information, checkout this site: look target=_blank>www.immigrationportal.com
look for DV visa link and read the threads that interest you.

Goodluck