Understanding the U.S. Green Card: Why the Date of Birth Appears Five Times

This video uses the 2023 version as an example to introduce the information on a U.S. green card. Previously I explained the information on a U.S. passport and the history of the U.S. green card and alien registration. Many people left supportive comments, but some complained that I talk too much and even mocked me for "making a video about a single document." My response: villains die from talking too much; we're the good guys, so we're not afraid—so today I'm here to water down another episode for you.

The three most recent generations of green cards all use green as the primary color. Although their designs differ, the information on them is largely the same. Like other documents, a green card should be kept safe, and it is best not to photograph it and post the image on social media, because some details you may not have noticed can actually leak your personal information. For example, the birth date alone appears in five places on the card.

The main background of the front of the green card is the Statue of Liberty and the national flag.

The top left corner bears the words "United States Permanent Resident," below which are the cardholder's name and birth date. For some reason, the U.S. government seems to place particular emphasis on the cardholder's birth date: it appears three times on the front of the card and twice on the back, five times in total. On the front, besides the top left corner, there is a "date of birth" in the middle, and the ID photo also has a steel stamp containing the birth date and gender. All three dates are written in day-month-year order, with the month shown as an English abbreviation rather than a number. If you have lived in the United States for a long time, this may seem a bit odd, because it is not the customary American way of writing dates.

Front of the 2023 version green card

There are three most common ways to write dates:

• The first is day/month/year, for example 10/11/12 means November 10, 2012. Most countries around the world mainly use this format, shown in blue in the image, including Europe, Africa, the Americas, South Asia, West Asia, and Oceania.

• The second is year/month/day, for example 10/11/12 means November 12, 2010, shown in yellow in the image, mainly in East Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Mongolia, and others.

• The third is month/day/year. Only one major country in the world mainly uses this format: the United States. 10/11/12 means October 11, 2012.

Distribution of major date formats worldwide: blue for day/month/year (most countries), yellow for year/month/day (East Asia), pink for month/day/year (United States) | Image: Wikipedia

This American spelling style came from British colonists; the British later changed course and adopted the spelling conventions of continental Europe, while Americans have kept it to this day—much the same as with measurement. 400 years ago, colonists of the British Empire brought their confusing system of measurement to America, called the "imperial system." More than 200 years later, the British themselves abandoned the imperial system and gradually adopted the more reasonable metric system, but Americans still use the imperial system to this day.

In 1793, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and then U.S. Secretary of State, invited French scientist Joseph Dombey to come to the United States, carrying two items intended to change the country: a metal cylinder with a mass of one "kilogram" and a copper rod with a length of one "meter." Jefferson wanted to follow France and promote the metric system in the United States. Unfortunately, Dombey's ship encountered a storm and went off course; he was captured by Caribbean pirates and eventually died in captivity, and the effort to promote the metric system in America disappeared into history along with him.

To this day, only three countries still use imperial units as their official system of measurement: the United States, Myanmar, and Libya. In addition, among all the countries you can name, only the United States measures temperature in Fahrenheit. Every time I take my parents traveling in the United States, two things must be done upon arriving at the hotel: 1. help them connect their phones to Wi-Fi; 2. change the air-conditioning panel from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

Only three countries in the world still use the imperial system of measurement: the United States, Myanmar, and Libya | Image: Statista

The customary U.S. date format is month/day/year; year/month/day is less common but still understandable. However, the birth date on the green card uses day/month/year, a format I have never seen in daily American life. I checked several earlier versions of the green card and found that they all used the standard American month/day/year format, until the 2010 Obama-era version, which for the first time used the day/month/year format for the birth date on the green card.

As mentioned earlier, this format is actually the global mainstream. International travel documents generally use this format to minimize misunderstanding. For example, U.S. passports use it for the birth date, issue date, and expiration date; even Chinese passports do the same, using this format for the birth date, issue date, and expiration date:

However, what is strange about the dates on the green card is that the birth date follows the international standard, using day/month/year, while the expiration date and the date residence began still use the American month/day/year format—this is true for all three most recent versions of the card. I do not know the reason. If you know why, please leave a comment to enlighten me.

The middle part of the green card contains personal information:

The first item is Surname. Some people's surnames consist of two words.

The second item is the given name. If you have a middle name, only its first letter is shown here. For example, the person in the sample card has the given name "test," but she also has a middle name beginning with V, so it appears here as Test V.

The third item is place of birth. Note that this is not nationality. Under U.S. immigration law, green card priority dates and similar matters are based on place of birth, not nationality. I have a friend who studied and worked in the UK and obtained a British passport; he is a British citizen. He once considered moving to the United States, because he is a programmer and Silicon Valley salaries are much higher than his income in the UK. But after learning that if he came to the United States, he would still face many years of priority-date waiting like other Chinese applicants when applying for a green card, he gave up the idea. Today he is doing very well in the UK, with a happy family and a very accomplished child.

The fourth item is the USCIS number, i.e., the Alien Registration Number, or A-number, a 7- to 9-digit number. If you have seen my earlier video on the history of the green card, this practice began in 1940. Today, USCIS generally assigns this registration number only to immigration applicants. Nonimmigrant applications, such as B1/B2 extensions, also ask on Form I-539 whether you have an A-number, but if you have never filed an immigration application before, you usually will not have this number.

The fifth item is the immigration category code:

The Department of Homeland Security website lists more than 400 green card codes, which are very detailed. If you are strongly privacy-conscious, it is advisable not to disclose this code, because it contains a lot of information, including your application category (employment-based, family-based, or political asylum), the application route (adjustment of status within the United States or consular processing), whether you are the principal applicant or a spouse or child, and whether it is a permanent or conditional green card. The category in the sample card is IR1, which is a permanent green card obtained by the spouse of a U.S. citizen who applied for a visa abroad and entered the United States. If adjusting status within the United States, the category is IR6. If it is a 2-year conditional green card, the category is CR1 or CR6.

The sixth item is gender. The green card currently appears to support only two genders, male and female. Take Form I-485 for adjustment of status as an example: the current version has only two options, Male and Female, with no third option and no handwriting allowed.

However, if you later naturalize and become a U.S. citizen, Form N-400 has three gender options: male, female, and other. This is a new option starting in 2024; the news was released on April 1, but it was not an April Fool's joke. If you naturalize and become a citizen, you can apply for a U.S. passport, and U.S. passports have had an "other gender" option since 2022.

On Form DS-11 for passport applications, the Gender field offers M (male), F (female), and X (other gender). If you applied for a passport before the X option existed and now want to change to X when renewing, you can do so; there is a checkbox: Changing Gender Marker, which asks whether you want to change your gender designation in this application.

In addition to the federal government, nearly half of U.S. states currently allow a third gender option when applying for a driver's license. These states are mainly blue states, i.e., states dominated by Democrats and liberals.

States with an asterisk allow choosing X gender when applying for a driver's license | Image: LGBTMap

Interestingly, two deep-red states—Arkansas and Indiana—once offered a third gender option on driver's licenses, but both overturned the policy this year. Arkansas had allowed an X gender marker on driver's licenses and government IDs since 2010, for a full 14 years. Sarah Sanders, former Trump White House press secretary, has promoted many conservative policies since becoming governor of Arkansas in 2023, and eliminating the X gender option is just one of them.

By the way, Arkansas is located in the middle of the southern United States. Although we now regard it as a deep-red state, in the first half of the 20th century it was actually a deep-blue state: over the 88 years from 1876 to 1964, it voted Democratic in all 22 presidential elections.

In the 1970s, Arkansas gradually began to turn red, voting for Republicans and Democrats in different elections. In 1992, Bill Clinton, a native who had served as governor of Arkansas, ran for president and was re-elected in 1996; Arkansas voted for him both times, but that was the last time Arkansas supported a Democrat, and it has been solidly red ever since.

Arkansas presidential election voting record | Image: 270towin

Back to this green card: the holder has resided in the United States as a permanent resident since October 25, 2020, and the card is valid until October 26, 2032—exactly 12 years. As explained earlier, this card's category is IR1, a permanent green card for the spouse of a U.S. citizen, valid for 10 years. This means that before this card, she also had a two-year green card, i.e., a conditional marriage green card.

Resident since refers to the date you began residing in the United States as a "permanent resident":

• If you adjusted status within the United States, this is the approval date of your I-485.

• If you applied for an immigrant visa outside the United States, this should be the date you first entered the United States and activated your permanent resident status after obtaining the immigrant visa.

• If you are a refugee, the resident since date is the date you entered the United States.

• And if you are a political asylee, the resident since date is your green card approval date minus 1 year.

For example, your political asylum application was approved on January 1, 2020. Under immigration law, you must wait one year before you can apply for a green card. Suppose your green card is approved on June 1, 2021; the date residence began on the green card will be June 1, 2020—that is, the approval date minus the one year you waited after your asylum application was approved. This is required by immigration law.

What is the benefit? If you want to naturalize and become a citizen, you must reside continuously in the United States for five years after becoming a permanent resident (three years for spouses of citizens) before you are eligible to file a naturalization application. For asylees, the green card's "date residence began" is moved back one year, which means that after receiving the green card they need only reside another four years to be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Having finished looking at the front, let's now look at the back of the green card.

The top left corner bears the words "form i-551," which is the official name of the green card. If you apply for an immigrant visa at a consulate, you need to activate your permanent resident status and obtain a green card after landing in the United States; before you receive the green card, your immigrant visa provides temporary permanent resident status, and the visa will bear the words "temporary I-551," valid for one year.

Back of the 2023 version green card

In addition, if your green card is lost or expired and your application to replace it has not yet been approved, and you urgently need to travel abroad and prove your immigration status, you can also go to a local USCIS office to get a temporary green card stamp, which is also valid for 1 year.

Temporary I-551 stamp | Image: Reddit user

In the middle of the card is the holder's headshot photo and security features; above them are the holder's birth date and gender, with the birth date in the same day/month/year format as on the front.

Below there are three lines of codes containing a lot of information. The author consulted many English-language website explanations; some numbers have consistent interpretations, while others remain unclear and may be check digits.

The first two characters of the first line, C1, indicate that the holder is a permanent resident residing in the United States. There is also a special C2 green card for people who have permanent resident rights but live in Canada or Mexico and commute to work in the U.S. The C2 green card has certain restrictions, such as not being able to apply for citizenship or petition for family members.

USA of course refers to the United States. Some say it indicates the place of residence, while others say it indicates the issuing country; the author has searched multiple times and has not found any example listing another country, including on C2 green cards, which also show USA.

Of the following 10 digits, the first 9 are your alien registration number, for example the sample number we also saw on the front, 123-456-789; the meaning of the 10th digit is unclear and it should be a check digit.

The next 13 characters are your case number, where the first three letters indicate the USCIS center that processed your application, for example CSC is California Service Center, TSC is Texas Center, and MSC in the sample is Missouri Center; of the following 10 digits, the first two are the year the case was submitted. Note that this year is the U.S. government fiscal year, which runs from October to the end of the following September. For example, an application submitted in October 2020 falls in fiscal year 2021, so the first two digits are 21. If you have a recently issued green card on hand, you can check whether this pattern holds.

The angle brackets that follow are spaces or placeholders.

The first 6 digits of the second line are the date of birth, in year-month-day format rather than day-month-year. For example, 021020 in the sample means October 20, 2002, consistent with the date on the security code above, just in reverse format. The 7th digit is generally considered a check digit. F indicates gender, female.

The next 6 digits are the expiration date; 32 10 26 in the sample means it expires on October 26, 2032, consistent with the front. After that is another check digit. Then comes the place of birth; MEX in the sample is Mexico. For a Chinese applicant, this would be CHN. The final digit at the end is also suspected to be a check digit.

The third line is relatively easy to understand: it is the holder's name.

Alright, that's all for this video. I've spent so long explaining the front and back of a green card—do you think the content is too watered down?

Derek here: the American Guide series is aimed at Chinese immigrants and offers practical, reliable information. If you have questions about immigration or life in the United States, feel free to leave a comment and we will do our best to answer. If you find this video helpful, please comment, like, subscribe, and share; thank you for your support, and see you in the next video.