Bright Option - The Green Card Lottery Program

By Author: Paul Anderson
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You can get a green card through the annually held DV lottery program. As a green card holder, you can legally enter, work and live permanently in the US. There are other ways also that will help you get a green card.

Diversity lottery:

Through the Diversity Visa (DV) program, 50,000 green cards are available every year to applicants who are selected randomly. Qualifying for the program is pretty simple. You are required to fulfill simple, but strict eligibility requirements. It is important to note that not all countries are eligible. So it is evident that you have to be from a qualifying country. The eligibility country normally is your country of birth and is not related to where you live. Another requirement is that you should have at least a high school education or its equivalent.

Coming to qualifying countries, per immigration laws, countries from which large numbers of immigrants move to the US do not qualify under this program. It simply means that if more than 50,000 persons in the family and employment based visa categories came to the US in the last five years from your country, ...
... then your country will not be eligible for the current year's DV lottery.

The Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) takes care of the process. The results are announced by the KCC only and it is important to remember that no other organization or company is authorized to declare the results to the winners in the DV lottery program.

The KCC selects the winners through a computer, randomly for the fiscal year program. Previously, they followed the method of announcing the results by regular postal mail between the months of May and July every year. But, they changed the process during the 2010 fiscal year program, where a pilot program enabled applicants to check the results online. Through this, applicants were able to check if they are selected for further processing or not.

The DV lottery result process:

Every year, there is a particular registration period. Once the electronic entry submission is over, the official green card lottery website will stop accepting entries for the fiscal year. Then, a computer will randomly select winners from the valid entries region wise.

Every valid entry will be assigned a case number per the year and your birth country's geographical region. If selected, you will be strictly informed that you should not proceed further if you do not satisfy the eligibility requirements. The confirmation number is the only way to check the results. So make sure you keep your confirmation number safe.

Being selected in the program will not give you the immigrant visas instantly. It only gives you an option to apply for the immigration visa by paying the required immigrant visa fees and the diversity visa processing fees. Other eligible family members are also required pay the same visa fees for each of them. Note that the visa fees will not be refunded if your visa is rejected for some reason or the other.

Ensure that you pay the visa fees only to the US Embassy or Consular office on the date of the interview. Do not send the fees by Bank or through any other organization. Though the KCC will not send the winner selection through the email, after winning the lottery those who had been selected will be contacted through their email addresses for further communication, if need be.