Information for green card winners

We keep receiving questions from last year's winners. At present, they are waiting for their interviews as the consulates, some have already had them. A brief check list for your day at the consulate:

- Remember to bring your vaccination certificate, good-conduct certificate and bank statements

- Mostly, they will check your documents, the interview itself lasts about 5 minutes

- You don't need to translate your documents, the German originals plus one copy are sufficient, or simply certified copies

- Even if you will just use your green card for vacations in the US at first before you will immigrate after some time, you should make it very clear during the interview that you do intend to immigrate. State a date within the next two years for your final immigration. Once you have the green card, no one can tell you when you actually have to immigrate into the US anymore.

- After the appointment, you will receive a sealed envelope that you have to hand in upon your first entry into the US. One fingerprint will also be taken at the airport. Those are all the formalities that will be taken care of at the border.

- From then on, you should enter the US every 180 days, or at the 365th day after your last departure at the latest. There are no regulations on how long you must stay there. However, you should always point out your wish to live in the US permanently, should you be asked about this, and, if possible, demonstrate that you have a bank account in the US, store cards, a US driver's license etc.

If you don't have an interview appointment yet, don't worry. The consulates have just started giving out appointments. Appointments will be given out until late next spring. As long as you are invited before September 2000, you can still get your green card.

By the way, if you are interested in writing a short report for other applicants about your experience, e.g. of the interview, and would like us to publish this in our newsletter, you can send this to us via email. Please also tell us whether we may publish your email address and in what form. If you are interested we can also compile a list with the email addresses and phone numbers of winners so that you can contact each other. This list will only be accessible by other winners, so that you will not be flooded with questions from others. Even if you are interested in a TV or newspaper report about your green card-winning, please write us an email. We often get offers of that kind and would like to refer you to reputable journalists.

Naturally, we will handle all our applicants' and winners' names strictly confidentially, and never give them to a third party without your consent.