USA Green Card Lottery

What is the USA Green Card Lottery?
Under the USA green card lottery, also known as the diversity visa lottery or DV lottery, the United States gives 50,000 green cards each year to persons from all over the world. The USA green card lottery is designed to offer permanent residency to individuals from countries that are currently underrepresented or have a low rate of immigration to the U.S. This is truly a lottery since the winners are selected randomly and by a computer. But, you must be eligible to apply—if you are, the process is pretty straight forward and once your registered just cross your fingers, say a prayer and wait… you’ve got to be it to win it! (see the Green Card Lottery Book)

How does the USA Green Card Lottery Work?
Congress created the DV lottery under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as diversity immigrants. Winners are selected randomly by computer that factors in certain things such as a countries rate of immigration and, no one country may receive more than 7% of the available Diversity Visas in any given year. If you receive a visa through the USA Green Card Lottery Program you will be authorized to live and work permanently in the United States . If you win the DV lottery you will also be allowed to bring your spouse and any unmarried children under the age of 21 to the United States .

Who is Eligible?
To be eligible to register for the USA green card lottery you, your spouse or one of your parents must have been born in an eligible country. (see below)That means that even if you would be ineligible because you were born in a country not on the list, you may still apply if your spouse OR mother OR father was born in an eligible country. Specifically, the government eligibility rules are as follows:

Native of a country whose natives qualify: In most cases this means the country in which the applicant was born. However, there are two other ways a person may be able to qualify. First, 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 provided both the applicant and spouse are issued visas and enter the U.S. simultaneously. Second, 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 his/her birth, such person may claim nativity in one of the parents’ country of birth if it is a country whose natives qualify for the DV-2007 program.

Other USA Green Card Lottery Requirements:

• A U.S. High School Diploma or its foreign equivalent OR,
• Two years of work experience, in the past five years, that required two years of training OR 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 will be used to determine qualifying work experience. Click here to access O*Net

NOTE: Applicant for the USA green card lottery must meet either the education or training requirement of the DV program.