work visas, student visa, us visas, visa application, travel visas

Under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act many immigrants find themselves in a sort of Green Card Lottery where the prize is a United States Permanent Resident Card. Only specific countries with low rates of immigration within the United States qualify for this Green Card Lottery. The Immigration Act of 1990 amended INA 203 to provide a new class of these immigrants called “diversity immigrants” in an attempt to bring more diversity to the citizenship of the United States enriching our own culture and heritage.

What makes a country eligible for the Diversity Immigration Visa?

When deciding whether or not a country is eligible for the Diversity Immigration Visa, the previous 5 years are taken into consideration. If the country of residence has had more than 50,000 immigrants within the United States in the past 5 years, those immigrants would become ineligible. Some ineligible countries or nations would be South Korea, United Kingdom, Peru, Colombia, Pakistan, Mexico, India, and Vietnam.

What are some of the exemptions to the Diversity Immigration Visa?

Understanding the meaning of 50,000 immigrants can be complicated. “Immigrants” is a term that generally means immigrants coming here via employment, family-sponsored, or immediate relatives within the US. However, asylum seekers, previous diversity immigrants, NACARA beneficiaries, and refugees are not include in the 50,000 count. Therefore, nations or countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Cuba, and Iran are exempt from the ineligibility factors.

How are the Diversity Immigration Visas distributed?

The visas are actually distributed regionally with the region with fewer immigrants getting more of the diversity visas. Europe and Africa currently receive around 80% of the visas in the Green Card Lottery. No single nation, however, may receive more than 3,500 visas.

Once you “win” in the Green Card Lottery, you must understand you still must meet specific requirements. Just because you won does not mean you automatically win. Therefore, significantly more winners are chosen each year than are actually needed with the understanding that not everyone will receive their visa.

An interview process is required AND the potential citizen must meet all eligibility requirements under US law. One of the requirements is the potential citizen must have a High School diploma or its equivalent OR two years of work experience in specific industries requiring a minimum of a 2 year degree or training certificate.

Countries with the highest number of Diversity Immigrant Visas going to its immigrants are in 2010 (in order from highest to lowest) is Ghana, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Australia, and Bahamas.

Since 2005, many bills and propositions have been set forth in the Senate and Congress to eliminate funding as well as the entire Diversity Immigration Visa program. However, all such bills or proposals have failed. To date, the diversity visa or DV is still active, and the Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2009 would increase the diversity visas to 110,000 per year.

While the Green Card Visas or Diversity Visas may seem a long shot it is definitely important to remember… the United States is about making all of your dreams come true.

[Home] [Passports] [Visas] [Documents] [Birth Certificates]
[Driving Permits] [Prices] [Tracking] [About us] [Contact] [Email] [Translations]
[Links] [Travel Glossary] [FAQs] [VIP Travel Forum] [VIP Newsletter Archive] [Testimonials]

VIP Passports And Visa Services
VIP Passports, Inc. || 2012 Louisiana St. || Houston, Texas 77002
Toll Free: 1-800-876-8472 || Fax: 713-659-3767
Local: 713-659-8472 || Email:
Site Created & Maintained by Nance Leighton.
VIP Passport Services, Inc. specializes in first time passports, passport renewals, lost passports, pages added to passports, child's passports, birth certificates, renewal of passport for any reason, passport photos, immigration photos, gun license photos, job application photos, id photos, id badges, document legalization, international driving permits, notary services and passports in as quick as 24 hours.