The Department of State annually administers the statutorily-mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants” from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
For Fiscal Year 2020, 50,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available.
Applicants who are selected in the program (“selectees”) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a diversity visa. The Department of State determines selectees through a randomized computer drawing. The Department of State distributes diversity visas among six geographic regions, and no single country may receive more than 7 percent of the available DVs in any one year.
For DV-2020, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years:
Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.
Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.
Eligibility
Requirement #1: Individuals born in countries whose natives qualify may be eligible to enter. If you were not born in an eligible country, there are two other ways you might be able to qualify.
Was your spouse born in a country whose natives are eligible? If yes, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth – provided that both you and your spouse are named on the selected entry, are found eligible and issued diversity visas, and enter the United States simultaneously.
Were you born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but in which neither of your parents was born or legally resident at the time of your birth? If yes, you may claim the country of birth of one of your parents if it is a country whose natives are eligible for the DV-2020 program. For more details on what this means, see the Frequently Asked Questions.
Requirement #2: Each DV applicant must meet the education/work experience requirement of the DV program by having either:
at least a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of formal elementary and secondary education;
OR
two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform. The Department of State will use the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net Online database to determine qualifying work experience.
Entry period
Applicants must submit entries for the DV-2020 program electronically at dvlottery.state.gov between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, October 3, 2018, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
Do not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter, as heavy demand may result in website delays.
No late entries or paper entries will be accepted.
The law allows only one entry per person during each registration period.
The Department of State uses sophisticated technology to detect multiple entries. Individuals with more than one entry will be disqualified.
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