2012 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Lottery): Registration Ending Soon
The U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) is accepting registration for the 2012 Diversity Visa Lottery, but the registration period is closing soon. Registration opened at noon EST October 5, 2010 and closes at noon EST on November 3, 2010.
Each fiscal year, DOS allocates a maximum of 55,000 Diversity Visas (“DV”) to be made available to individuals 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. A computer-generated random lottery drawing chooses selectees for DVs. 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 period of the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.
For DV-2012, natives of the following countries are NOT eligible to apply because the countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years:
- Brazil
- Canada
- China (Mainland-Born)
- Colombia
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- India
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Philippines
- Poland
- 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. For DV-2012, no countries have been added or removed from the previous year's list of eligible countries.
DV Registration Period
Entries for the DV-2011 DV Lottery must be submitted electronically by noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-4) Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Applicants may access the electronic Diversity Visa (E-DV) Entry Form at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ during the registration period. Paper entries will NOT be accepted. Applicants are encouraged not to wait until the last days of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in Web site delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EST, on November 3, 2010.
Requirements for Entry
To enter the DV lottery, you must be a native of one of the listed countries. See “List of Countries by Region Whose Natives Qualify.” In most cases, this means the country in which you were born. However, there are two other ways you may be able to qualify. First, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible but your spouse was born in a country whose natives are eligible, you can claim your spouse's country of birth, provided both you and your spouse are on the selected entry, are issued visas, and enter the United States simultaneously. Second, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but neither of your parents was born there or resided there at the time of your birth, you may claim nativity in one of your parents' country of birth, if it is a country whose natives qualify for the DV-2011 program.
To enter the lottery, you must meet either the education or work experience requirement of the DV program. You must have either a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education OR two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform.
Procedures for Submitting an Entry to DV-2012
The DOS will only accept completed E-DV Entry Forms submitted electronically at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ during the registration period, which ends at noon, EST (GMT-4), November 3, 2010.
All entries by an individual will be disqualified if more than ONE entry for that individual is received, regardless of who submitted the entry. You may prepare and submit your own entry, or have someone submit the entry for you.
A successfully registered entry will result in the display of a confirmation screen containing your name and a unique confirmation number. You may print this confirmation screen for your records. Starting May 1, 2011, you will be able to check the status of your DV-2012 entry by returning to the Web site and entering your unique confirmation number and personal information.