U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) mails green cards to immigrants who enter into the U.S. as legal residents and to those who apply for green card renewal or replacement. While most applicants receive their green cards USCIS sends, some do not. In some cases, though the cards were not delivered, USPS sends a notification saying that they were delivered.Such applicants can notify the USCIS that they did not receive their green cards.
New legal permanent residents will first be mailed a welcome notice and then their green cards. These legal residents need to contact the USCIS customer service at 1-800-375-5283 if they do not receive their welcome notice within 30 days from the date of becoming a legal resident. Similarly, they need to contact the customer service if it has been 30 days since they received their welcome notice but they still have not got their green cards.
Those who have applied for green card renewal or replacement can contact the USCIS if it has been 30 days since their cards were mailed to them.
Those who never got their green cards/replacement green cards in mail, will need to file Form I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card, to get a new green card.
But they will not be required to pay the application filing fee again if,
- the cards were not delivered to them, but returned to the USCIS as undeliverable,
- their green cards were sent to them by mail before 30 days and
- if they did not move from the address they initially provided at the time of filing their applications.
Along with Form I-90, they must submit a copy of Form I-797, Notice of Action. This applies to the new legal permanent residents and to those who filed Form I-90. They also need to submit a copy of a government-issued identification document that has their names, photograph, date of birth and signature.