Sunday, July 30, 2006
If you won the DV-2007 green-card lottery, by now you should have received notification from the U.S. Consular Center. The Center sent the winning notices July 18. If you don't receive your notice soon, you can assume you didn't win. The Center does not notify those not selected.
Winners were chosen at random from 5.5 million qualified entries. This year, Nigeria had the most winners, followed by Egypt, Ukraine and Ethiopia. To enter, applicants had to have been a native of what the law calls a "low-admission country" -- one where less than 50,000 of that country's natives received immigrant visas in the past five years. In the DV-2007 lottery, natives of all countries were eligible except Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan were eligible as well. The U.S. Department of State will release information for the DV-2008 lottery in August.
Congress passed the first green-card-lottery law in 1986, establishing the current program in 1990. The lotteries are designed to increase the diversity of new immigration to the United States. Because immigration from some countries had slowed after passage of the 1965 immigration reforms, prospective immigrants from these countries had few relatives in the United States who could petition for them. Lottery supporters argued that these countries needed "new seeds" to allow for new immigration. The first lotteries benefited primarily Irish and other Europeans. The present lottery is much broader. Immigration from Africa, for instance, has increased substantially because of the lottery. Yet not everyone supports the lottery. Some opponents argue that a lottery is a silly way to decide who can immigrate to the United States, preferring to admit skilled workers.
Under the current lottery law, 50,000 winners will get permanent residence this year. The Consular Center sent approximately 82,000 winners notices. The Center knows that some winners will not apply and that others won't qualify. The winners are divided up among six geographic regions with a maximum of 7 percent available to persons born in any single country. If you won the lottery, you must apply and get permanent residence in the government fiscal (record-keeping) year from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007. Follow the instructions carefully and respond to correspondence quickly. If you don't get your immigrant visa by Sept. 30, 2007, you lose your rights under the DV-2007 lottery. The spouse and unmarried children of lottery winners also qualify for permanent residence. They too must get their immigrant visas prior to Sept. 30, 2007.
To get a lottery green card, you must prove that you have at least a high-school-level education earned here or abroad. Alternatively, you must prove that you have worked two of the past five years in a job for which at least two years' training or experience is a normal requirement. High-school-equivalency diplomas do not meet this requirement. You present evidence of either your education or work experience at the time of your immigrant-visa interview. All the bars to permanent residence apply. That means that you'll need to prove that you won't become a public charge.
Send questions and comments to Allan Wernick, P.O. Box 536500, Orlando, FL 32853. His Web site is: www.allanwernick.com.
