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Browse by subject: Green Card Lottery Overview, How to Submit an Entry, and How Applicants Are Selected. Green Card Lottery OverviewThe congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery) is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The annual DV program (US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery) makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year. Natives of the countries that sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in previous five-year periods are not be eligible to apply for the Green Card Lottery. For example, non-eligible countries for DV-2004 are: CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, EL SALVADOR, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, SOUTH KOREA UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM. (Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.) The term "country" includes countries, economies and other jurisdictions explicitly named in the official List of Countries. Entries for the Diversity Visa Lottery (US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery) must be received at one of the Kentucky Consular Center mailing addresses at the appointed time and date. Entries received before or after these dates will be disqualified regardless of when they are postmarked. Entries mailed to any address other than the Kentucky Consular Center addresses will be disqualified. An applicant must be a native of a country whose natives qualify according to the official List of Countries. In most cases this means the country in which the applicant was born. However, if a person was born in a country whose natives are ineligible but his/her spouse was born in a country whose natives are eligible, such person can claim the spouse's country of birth providing both the applicant and spouse are issued visas and enter the U.S. simultaneously. If a person was born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but neither of his/her parents was born there or resided there at the time of the birth, such person may be able to claim nativity in one of the parents' country of birth. An applicant must meet EITHER the education OR training requirement of the DV program. This means an applicant must have EITHER (a) a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education OR (b) two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform. The U.S. Department of Labor's O*Net OnLine database at http://online.onetcenter.org will be used to determine qualifying work experience. At the Consular Affairs website at http://travel.state.gov/ONET.html applicants will find the Labor Department list of qualifying occupations. If a prospective applicant cannot meet the Green Card Lottery native country and education/training requirements, there is no point in submitting an entry to the DV program, because the entry will simply NOT be accepted. The Green Card Lottery is one of the ways to get to Browse by subject: Green Card Lottery Overview, How to Submit an Entry, and How Applicants Are Selected. How to Submit an EntryAll entries by an applicant will be disqualified if more than ONE entry for the applicant is received, regardless of who submitted the entry. This section covers: Signatures, Photos, Format and Mailing. Click here to see (in a new browser window) an image of what a blank entry should look like. SignaturesThe entry will be disqualified if the entry is not PERSONALLY SIGNED by the applicant in his/her native alphabet, as it would appear on his/her passport or other official or contractual obligations. Neither an initialed signature nor block printing of the applicant's name will be accepted and will result in the disqualification of the entry. If an applicant chooses to sign his/her name in the Roman alphabet and that is not their native alphabet, he/she must also sign in his/her native alphabet. PhotosThe entry will be disqualified if all required photos are not attached. Recent photographs of the applicant and his/her spouse and each child, including all natural children as well as all legally-adopted and stepchildren, excepting a child who is already a U.S. citizen or a Legal Permanent Resident, even if a child no longer resides with the applicant, must be attached to the entry. The name and date of birth of each family member must be printed on the back of their photo. Group or family photos will not be accepted; there must be a separate photo for each family member. Photos should be attached with tape and not stapled to the entry. If there is insufficient room on the front of the entry, applicants may tape photos to the back of the page. If photos do not conform to the following specifications, the entry will be disqualified:
FormatThere is no specific format for the entry for the US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery. Simply use a plain sheet of paper and type or clearly print the required information in the English (Roman) alphabet. Failure to provide all of the folowing required information will disqualify the applicant's entry.
MailingUnder the annual DV program (US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery), the world is divided into six regions. Each region has a separate mailing address. The DV entry should be mailed to the address indicated below for the applicant's region of nativity:
Submit the entry by regular or airmail to the address matching the region of the applicant's country of nativity. Entries sent by express or priority mail, second day airmail, fax, hand, messenger, or any means requiring special handling will not be processed. The envelope must be between 6 and 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) long and 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 inches (9 to 11 cm) wide. Postcards or envelopes inside express or oversized mail packets are NOT acceptable. In the upper left-hand corner of the envelope the applicant must write his/her country of nativity (see instruction 3 above), followed by the applicant's name and full return address. The applicant must provide both the country of nativity and the country of the address, even if both are the same. Failure to provide this information will disqualify the entry. Here's an example. An applicant who was born in Australia and now lives in France may submit one entry to the appropriate address for Oceania. Click here to see (in a new browser window) an image of what the envelope should look like. The Green Card Lottery is one of the ways to get to Browse by subject: Green Card Lottery Overview, How to Submit an Entry, and How Applicants Are Selected. How Applicants Are SelectedApplicants to the US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery will be selected at random by computer from among all qualified entries. Those selected will be notified by mail between May and July and will be provided further instructions, including information on fees connected with immigration to the U.S. Persons not selected will NOT receive any notification. U.S. embassies and consulates will not be able to provide a list of successful applicants. Spouses and unmarried children of successful applicants under age 21 may also apply for visas to accompany or follow to join the principal applicant. For example, DV-2004 visas will be issued between October 1, 2003 and September 30, 2004. To actually receive a visa, applicants selected in the random drawing must meet ALL eligibility requirements under U.S. law, including any applicable special processing requirements established in response to the events of September 11, 2001. These requirements may significantly increase the level of scrutiny required and time necessary for processing of applications for natives of some countries listed in this notice, including, but not limited to, countries identified as state sponsors of terrorism. Processing of entries and issuance of diversity visas to successful applicants and their eligible family members MUST occur by midnight on September 30. Under no circumstances can diversity visas be issued or adjustments approved after this date, nor can family members obtain diversity visas to follow to join the applicant in the U.S. after this date. NO fee is charged to enter the annual DV program (US Immigration and Naturalization Services Green Card Lottery). The U.S. Government employs no outside consultants or private mail services to operate the DV program. Any intermediaries or others who offer assistance to prepare DV casework for applicants do so without the authority or consent of the U.S. Government. Use of any outside intermediary or assistance to prepare a DV entry is entirely at the applicant's discretion. A qualified entry received directly from an applicant has an equal chance of being selected by the computer at the Kentucky Consular Center as does an entry received through a paid intermediary who completes the entry for the applicant. There is no advantage to mailing early, or mailing from any particular place. Every entry received during the mail-in period will have an equal random chance of being selected within its region. However, receipt of more than one entry per person will disqualify the person from registration, regardless of the source of that entry. List of CountriesFollowing by region is a list of countries whose natives are QUALIFIED within each geographic region for this diversity program. The determination of countries within each region is based on information provided by the Geographer of the Department of State. The countries whose natives do not qualify for the DV-2004 program were identified by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security according to the formula in Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Dependent areas overseas are included within the region of the governing country. The countries whose natives do NOT qualify for this diversity program (because they are the principal source countries of Family-Sponsored and Employment-Based immigration, or "high admission" countries) are noted in parentheses after the respective regional lists. AFRICA
ASIA
(Natives of the following Asian countries do not qualify for this year's diversity program: EUROPE
(Natives of the following European countries do not qualify for this year's diversity program: GREAT BRITAIN. GREAT BRITAIN (UNITED KINGDOM) includes the following dependent areas: ANGUILLA, BERMUDA, BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS, CAYMAN ISLANDS, FALKLAND ISLANDS, GIBRALTAR, MONTSERRAT, PITCAIRN, ST. HELENA, TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS. Note that for purposes of the diversity program only, Northern Ireland is treated separately; Northern Ireland does qualify and is listed among the qualifying areas. NORTH AMERICA
(In North America, natives of CANADA do not qualify for this year's diversity program.) OCEANIA
SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN
(Countries in this region whose natives do not qualify for this year's diversity program: The Green Card Lottery is one of the ways to get to Browse by subject: Green Card Lottery Overview, How to Submit an Entry, and How Applicants Are Selected. |
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