Читать книгу U.S. Citizenship For Dummies - Jennifer Gagliardi - Страница 48

The State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) operates and maintain Travel.State.Gov, the one-stop website for travelers (immigrants and non-immigrants) to and from the United States. Its duties include

 Issuing passports (approximately 11.71 million U.S. passports were issued in 2020 alone)

 Providing information about safely traveling and living abroad

 Warning travelers of particularly dangerous areas

 Helping U.S. citizens traveling overseas to obtain emergency funds

 Checking on the whereabouts or welfare of U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad

 Helping families in the event a U.S. citizen’s loved one dies while traveling overseas

 Aiding U.S. travelers who become sick while traveling overseas

 Providing assistance to U.S. travelers who get arrested overseas

 Assisting in international adoptions and custody disputes

 Protecting and assisting U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad during international crises

 Distributing federal benefits payments

 Assisting with oversees absentee voting and Selective Service registration

In addition to providing services to U.S. citizens, the Department of State issues visas for foreigners who want to enter the United States. In fact, they issued more than 240,000 immigrant visas and 4 million nonimmigrant visas in 2020 (down from a recent high of 617,000 immigrant visas and 10 million nonimmigrant visas in 2016). When it comes time for you to get a visa, whether it is a temporary visa or a permanent visa, you’ll deal with the Department of State.

The USCIS must first approve your immigrant visa before forwarding it to the National Visa Center (NVC), a processing facility of the U.S. State Department, for further processing. The NVC will issue more paperwork for you to complete, and when you’ve completed that paperwork satisfactorily, the NVC will assign you an immigrant visa number. The State Department issues a monthly guide called the Visa Bulletin, explaining the status of various classes of immigrant visas. The Visa Bulletin charts visa availability for both family- and employer-sponsored immigrants based on priority date (the date the sponsoring petition was filed). Some categories, such as the fourth preference for siblings of U.S. citizens, are usually several years behind, while other categories may be current. (You can find out more about preference categories in Chapter 3.)

To access the Visa Bulletin go to the State Department website (www.state.gov). You can obtain past issues of the Visa Bulletin at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin.html.