

What Is the DS-261 Used For?įorm DS-261 is the first form to fill out and submit before the DS-260. You’d fill out and submit the form once the USCIS has approved your I-130, submitted DS-261, and paid the required fees. The “immigrant” in “Immigrant Visa Application” means a lawful permanent resident, not someone traveling to the U.S. The National Visa Center, NVC and the US embassy in your region handle the application. Individuals and family members applying for a marriage-based or family-based green card from outside the U.S. This article contains pieces of important information you’ll find very helpful throughout your immigrant visa application process. The form covers questions from different aspects of your life, including the places you’ve resided, education history, and others. If you’re applying for a spousal visa, you will be required to fill out and file Form DS-260. The Immigrant Visa Application is also designed for permanent residents who are traveling to the United States with the intention to stay. and intending to become marriage-based green card holders or get a Diversity Visa. The DS-260 form is for individuals living outside the U.S. The processes typically involve filling out and submitting several immigrant visa applications for lawful admission into the country.įorm DS-260 is one of those immigration forms it is an online immigrant visa application form intended for individuals and family members. Traveling to the United States with the intention of living permanently or just visiting takes a series of processes. Consular officers had already begun more intensive vetting of some visa applicants - including requests for their “social media handles” (user names) - when DOS launched a new supplemental questionnaire, DS-5535 in May 2017. Another proposed change would combine the DS-160 and DS-156, and discontinue the paper Form DS-156 altogether. No specific social media services were named in the proposed rule, although DOS reserved the authority to include additional social media platforms at a later date.

For the DS-260, the new form would also ask for all prior immigration violations, and, for the DS-160, whether the applicant has been deported or removed from any country.


Other questions seek five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, and international travel, and whether specified family members have been involved in terrorist activities. In a notice of rulemaking governing electronic Forms DS-260 and DS-160, DOS detailed its intention to require visa applicants to provide identifiers for specified social media platforms during the preceding five years. The State Department will likely require nonimmigrant and immigrant visa applicants to provide more detailed histories including social media platforms.
