The
congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is
administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and
conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of
1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new
class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV
immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident
visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of
immigration to the United States.
The annual DV
program makes permanent residence visas available to persons
meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements.
Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a
computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however,
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 citizens of countries
sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five
years. Within each region, no one country may receive more than
seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.
For DV-2005,
natives of the following countries are not
eligible to apply because they sent a total of more than 50,000
immigrants to the U.S. in the previous five years:
CANADA, CHINA
(mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, EL SALVADOR,
HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, RUSSIA,
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.
ENTRIES
FOR THE DV-2005 DIVERSITY VISA LOTTERY MUST BE SUBMITTED
ELECTRONICALLY BETWEEN SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2003 AND TUESDAY,
DECEMBER 30, 2003. APPLICANTS MAY ACCESS THE ELECTRONIC
DIVERSITY VISA ENTRY FORM AT ‘WWW.DVLOTTERY.STATE.GOV’
DURING THE 60 DAY REGISTRATION PERIOD BEGINNING NOVEMBER 1.
PAPER ENTRIES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. |
