Installment Seventy
The US Congress makes available 55,000 immigrant visas annually worldwide to countries that send less than 50,000 permanent immigrants over the previous five years. Persons born in Guyana are eligible to apply for this programme known as the Diversity Visa lottery or DV. This week’s Ask the Consul column addresses the criteria and dates to apply for the DV-2010 lottery and includes a warning about potential fraud for those seeking to participate in this programme.
Q: What is the DV lottery and how does one enter?
The DV programme is administered yearly by the US Department of State under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The law provides a maximum of 55,000 diversity immigrant visas each fiscal year according to strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses successful applicants from the qualified electronic entries. The visas 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 nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available diversity immigrant visas in any one year.
Entries for the DV-2010 Diversity Visa lottery are being accepted now and must be submitted electronically between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Thursday, October 2, 2008, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Monday, December 1, 2008. Applicants may access the electronic Diversity Visa entry form (E-DV) at www.dvlottery.state.gov during this registration period. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EST, on December 1, 2008. Applicants may submit only one entry. Those who submit multiple entries will automatically be disqualified.
Q: I am single, can I apply?
A: You do not need to be married to qualify for the DV lottery. False claims to marital relationships will cause you to be ineligible to travel to the United States for the rest of your life.
Q: What information must be included on my entry?
A: Your entry must include the required information on you, any spouse (if you are legally married), and all natural and/or legally adopted step children (if you have any) who are under age 21 at the time you submit your DV entry. You must include an individual digital photograph of you and individual photographs of other eligible family members listed on your entry form.
The photographs must confirm to the given specifications or your entry will automatically be rejected. You do not need to submit a photograph for a child who is already a US citizen or a US Legal Permanent Resident. Group or family photographs will not be accepted; there must be a separate photograph for each family member.
Failure to submit the required photographs for your spouse and each child listed on your entry will result in an incomplete entry to the E-DV system. The entry will not be accepted and must be resubmitted. Failure to enter the correct photograph of each individual in the case into the E-DV system will result in disqualification of the principal applicant and refusal of all visas in the case at the time of the visa interview.
Once you have successfully submitted your entry during the registration period, the computer will display a confirmation screen that contains your name, date of birth and country of birth and a date and time stamp indicating your entry was successfully received. This does not mean that you have been selected as a DV lottery winner. It just means your entry was successfully submitted and received.
Q: I already have an immigrant visa petition that was filed on my behalf, can I still enter the DV lottery?
A: Yes, you can submit an entry as long as you meet the basic criteria, regardless of whether or not you have another immigrant visa petition pending on your behalf. To enter, you must be at least 21 years of age. In addition, the law and regulations require that every DV entrant must have at least a high school education or its equivalent or have, within the past five years, two years of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two years’ training or experience. To learn more about qualifying occupations, see the official DV Instructions on the Department of State website at www.dvlottery.state.gov.
Q: How and when will I learn whether I have won the DV-2010 lottery?
A: The computer will randomly select applicants from among all qualified entries that were submitted during the registration period. Those successfully selected will be notified by postal mail between May and June 2009 and will be provided further instructions on how to proceed for visa issuance. Successful applicants can confirm online at www.dvlottery.state.gov during that same time period whether their entries were selected from among those received. Successful applicants will not be contacted via e-mail. Those applicants who were not successfully selected will not be notified at all.
FRAUD WARNING: The US Embassy wishes to provide the following fraud warning. There have been instances of fraudulent websites posing as the official US Government DV lottery site. Some fake companies posing as the US Government have sought money in order to “complete” lottery entry forms. Remember, there is no charge to download and complete the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form. The US Department of State only notifies successful DV applicants by postal letter, and NOT by email. For further information, consult the Department of State official DV website at: http://www.dvlottery.state.gov
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“Ask the Consul” is a periodic column from the US Embassy answering questions about US immigration law and visa issues. If you have a general question about visa policy please email it to us at AskGeorge@state.gov. We select questions and publish the answers in Stabroek News and on our website at http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/guyana/ask_con.html. For more information about visas please see http://www.unitedstatesvisas.gov or http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/.
Other than the questions we select, we DO NOT respond to questions sent to Ask the Consul. Please contact the visa inquiries unit (email visageorge@state.gov or call 225-7965 between 8 am- 12 pm and 1 pm- 4 pm Monday through Friday) if you have questions about a specific case.
