REGION: Highest Number Of U.S. Visa Lottery Applications From Australia
Monday: July 24, 2006
By Fili Sagapolutele, Pacific Magazine
Australia provided the highest number of selected applicants for permanent resident visas under the United States diversity lottery (DV) for 2007, according to information released this week by the U.S. State Department.
Applicants registered for the DV-2007 program were selected at random from over 5.5 million qualified entries received during the 60-day application period that ran from 12:00 AM on October 5, 2005, until midnight, December 4, 2005, a statement posted on the department's website said.
The lottery was conducted under the terms of provision of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
About 82,000 applicants have been registered and notified and may now make an application for an immigrant visa, the agency said.
Those selected will need to act on their immigrant visa applications quickly, the agency said. Applicants should follow the instructions in their notification letter and must fully complete the information requested.
In the Oceania region, 532 were selected from Australia, 514 from Fiji; 205 from New Zealand; 109 from Tonga; 10 from Samoa; Papua New Guinea 6 and Tuvalu 7, according to the U.S. State Department.
