The congressionally mandated diversity immigrant visa program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the stipulations 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 provides for a class of immigrants identified as "diversity immigrants". Section 203(c) of the INA provides a most of up to 55,000 diversity visas every fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The annual diversity visa lottery program makes permanent residence visas accessible to persons meeting the easy, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer generated arbitrary lottery drawing chooses selected for diversity visas . The visas , however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a superior number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration , and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the period of the past five years. Within every region, no one country may obtain more than seven percent of the available diversity visas in any one year.
For this year, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because they sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the period of the previous five years:
BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, EL SALVADOR, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, PERU, RUSSIA, POLAND, SOUTH KOREA, UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM. Persons born in Macau SAR, Hong Kong SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.
The Department of State implemented the electronic registration system start with diversity visa lottery - immigrant program - 2005 in order to make the diversity visa process supplementary efficient and secure. The Department utilizes exceptional technology and other means to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or who submit multiple entries.
CLICK FOR ELECTRONIC DIVERSITY VISA ENTRY FORM
