Free Republic

India will continue to be excluded from the U.S. Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery, commonly called the “green card lottery” for at least the next several years, likely through 2029. The country remains ineligible because the number of Indian nationals immigrating to the United States each year far exceeds the program’s limits. Meanwhile, ongoing backlogs in H-1B and employment-based (EB) green card categories have made the path to permanent residency even more challenging for skilled Indian professionals already living and working in the U.S. The U.S. Diversity Visa (DV) program or the green card lottery is designed to encourage immigration from...

The man who authorities believe to be responsible for the New York terror attack that left eight deaths and many more injured was apparently in the US because he “won” one of 50,000 places in the American “Diversity Lottery Visa” program. Not only is this system insulting to all Americans, but it clearly does not leave America safer. Until this morning, many people in the US may have been unaware of the Diversity Lottery that is carried out every year and which brings in up to 50,000 extra people from overseas who have no particular skill set other than the...

Each year, the U.S. Government makes 50,000 permanent residence visas available through the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program. Visas are apportioned among six geographic regions based on immigration rates to the United States over the last five years, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration to the United States. Visa applicants are selected through a computer-generated, random lottery. The selection of a person’s name in the lottery gives that person the opportunity to take the next steps in the visa application process. Please see the additional information on the Diversity Visa Program. Before...

The revised online registration period for the DV-2019 Program begins on Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and concludes on Wednesday, November 22, 2017 at 12:00 noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST). All entries made prior to October 18, 2017, will need to be resubmitted for the entrant to be considered. We regret the inconvenience to Diversity Visa entrants. In order to ensure fairness and protect the integrity of the process for all those concerned, however, we must restart the entry process for this year. If you entered before Wednesday, October 18, 2017, that entry will...

WASHINGTON — Groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the State Department’s refusal to process visa applications for winners of the U.S. Diversity Visa Program lottery who hail from the six countries covered by President Trump’s Muslim ban. The lawsuit was brought by Jenner & Block LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the National Immigration Law Center. It was filed on behalf of lottery winners from Iran and Yemen, and charges the federal government with running afoul of federal law and regulations by refusing to issue visas to...

On Tuesday, more than 14 million people around the world, including anxious applicants in the Washington area, will begin checking computers and smartphones in one of the strangest rituals of the U.S. immigration system. When the clock strikes noon in the nation’s capital, they will be able to visit a State Department website, enter their names, years of birth and 16-digit identification numbers. Then they will press “submit” to learn whether they have won one of the world’s most coveted contests: the U.S. green-card lottery. Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery, as it is officially known, provides up to 50,000...

Ask the AmbassadorLast Week Q & A (03.20-26.06) Honorable Ambassador, could you tell me, what kind of tendency exists in immigration from Russia to the U.S.? Is it decreasing or growing? And what are the reasons for this? Aleksei Loginov (Nizhegorodskiy) Ambassador Burns: Dear Aleksei, In recent years the level of Russian immigration to the United States has increased to the point that Russia is, in fact, no longer eligible for the Diversity Visa (Green Card) Lottery program, which is designed for countries with low levels of immigration to the U.S. Last year, 12,109 Russians received permission to immigrate to...