Winning a Green Card Through the Visa Lottery

If you can't find any other way to immigrate, you may be eligible for one of the 50,000 green card slots distributed by random drawing each year.

The Immigration Act of 1990 created a new green card category to benefit people from countries that in recent years have sent the fewest numbers of immigrants to the United States. You can enter the lottery if you are a native of one of these countries and meet certain other requirements. One of the latest requirements is purely technological -- as of 2003, applicants must submit their applications via the Internet and attach a digital photo.

Because the winners are selected through a random drawing, the program is popularly known as the green card lottery. Its official name is the Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery.

There are 50,000 winners selected each year under the lottery program. The winners are chosen by dividing the world into regions and allocating varying percentages of the total green cards to each region. Each qualifying country is limited to 3,850 lottery green cards per year. Different qualifying countries are selected each year, based on which nations -- and which areas of the world -- sent the fewest numbers of immigrants to the U.S. during the previous five years, in proportion to the size of their populations.

Applicants from qualifying countries must have either a high school diploma or a minimum of two years' experience in a job that normally requires at least two years of training or experience. U.S. job offers are not necessary.

There is a new application period every year, usually in late winter or early spring. Registrations submitted one year are not held over to the next. So if you are not selected one year, you need to reapply the next year to be considered. The most recent application period was known as "DV-2005," with applications accepted from November 1, 2003 until December 30, 2003. Winners will be notified between May and July, 2004.

The only countries not qualified for the DV-2005 lottery were:

Canada

China (mainland, not including Macau, Taiwan or Hong Kong)

Colombia

Dominican Republic

El Salvador

Haiti

India

Jamaica

Mexico

Pakistan

Philippines

Russia

South Korea

United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories

Vietnam

If you're from any country other than the ones listed above, and you meet the other eligibility criteria, you could have applied. But you just missed last December's deadline, so you'll want to look for news of an upcoming lottery around autumn of 2004.

Lottery applicants should make sure that they can actually claim what the law describes as "nativity" in the eligible country. Living in a country is not enough. Nativity is usually based on having been born in the country.

Even if you are a native of one of the ineligible countries, there are a couple of ways to get around this and become eligible to apply. 1) If your spouse was born in an eligible country, could claim your spouse's country of birth for lottery purposes. 2) If neither of your parents was born in your native country or made a home there at the time of your birth, you may be able to claim nativity in one of your parents' countries of birth.

Unfortunately, winning the lottery doesn't guarantee you a green card. The government always declares more winners than there are green cards -- which means if you don't follow up quickly or receive your interview on time, the green cards could run out. This is a serious problem. The State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly called the INS) are so backed up that months can go by with no action, causing you to miss your opportunity altogether. Also, as with all green card applications, you must prove that you are not inadmissible to the United States. For example, if you have been arrested for committing certain crimes, are considered a security risk, or are afflicted with certain physical or mental illnesses, you may be prevented from receiving a green card. Proving that you'll be able to support yourself financially in the U.S. can be a huge challenge for lottery winners.

Complete instructions on how to apply for the DV-2005 lottery are on the State Department website at http://travel.state.gov/dv2005.html.