United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is in charge of processing immigration requests from foreign nationals. This includes requests for asylum, citizenship, permanent residence, refugee status, and other matters of concern to legal as well as illegal aliens in the United States or people thinking of coming to America.

The Green Card Permanent Residence Section provides information about how to become a legal alien in America for 10 years or 2 years for cases involving conditional resident aliens. Specific subsections describe various circumstances for which people can obtain a Green Card such as trough family, work, refugee or asylum status, and other less common circumstances such as being an American Indian born in Canada.

The Citizenship Section discusses how you can become a citizen either through Naturalization or Parents. The latter pertaining to children of Americans born in other countries and the former containing a guide complete for guidelines that a foreigner must meet in order to be properly assimilated into American society.

The Humanitarian Section details special circumstances for which you might be able to obtain legal alien status as a refugee seeking asylum. Circumstances that may qualify people for asylum typically involve incidents of persecution as well as natural disasters.

Other sections of the USCIS site include international adoption issues, helping family members immigrate, and citizenship for members of the armed forces as well as their families. Visit the USCIS website (linked to above) for more information.