Skip to content A green card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, is a card that verifies a person’s permanent residency status in the U.S. It contains the cardholder’s photo, name, USCIS number, alien number (A-number), card issue and expiration dates, and card number. To read it, simply look at each section: the top contains the USCIS number and the card number, the middle has the person’s name and photo, and the bottom has the A-number, date of birth, and card validity dates.