The
National Visa Center at Portsmouth, New Hampshire has registered
and notified the winners of the DV-99 diversity lottery. The
diversity lottery was conducted under the terms of Section 203(c)
of the 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. Almost 90,000
applicants have been registered and notified and may now make
an application for an immigrant visa. Since it is likely that
some of the first *50,000 persons registered will not pursue
their cases to visa issuance, this larger figure should insure
that all DV-99 numbers will be used during fiscal year 1999
(October 1, 1998 until September 30, 1999).
Applicants registered for the DV-99 program were selected at
random from the approximately 3.4 million qualified entries
received during the one-month application period which ran from
noon on October 24, 1997 through noon on November 24, 1997.
An additional 2.4 million
applications received inside and outside of the mail-in period
were disqualified for failing to properly follow directions.
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The visas have been apportioned
among six geographic regions with a maximum of 3,500 visas (7%
of the *50,000 total) available to persons born in any single
country. During the visa interview, principal applicants must
provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent,
or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires
at least two years of training or experience within the past
five years.
Those selected will need to
act on their immigrant visa applications quickly. Applicants
should follow the instructions in their notification letter
and must fully complete the information requested. Registrants
living legally in the United States who wish to apply for adjustment
of their status must contact the Immigration and Naturalization
Service for information on the requirements and procedures.
Once the total *50,000 visa numbers have been used, the program
for fiscal year 1999 will end. Selected applicants who do not
receive visas by September 30, 1999 will derive no further benefit
from their DV-99 registration. Similarly, spouses and children
accompanying or following to join DV-99 principal applicants
are only entitled to derivative DV status until September 30,
1999.
Only participants in the DV-99
program who were selected for further processing have been notified.
Those who have not received notification were not selected
and may wish to try for next year's DV-2000 lottery. The dates
for the mail-in period for the DV-2000 lottery are scheduled
from noon on October 1, 1998 until noon on October 31, 1998.
Instructions on entering the DV-2000 program will be widely
publicized some time in August 1998.
[REGISTER
NOW! online application]
*The Nicaraguan and Central
American Relief Act (NCARA) passed by Congress in November 1997
stipulates that beginning with DV-99, and for as long as necessary,
5,000 of the 55,000 annually-allocated diversity visas will
be made available for use under the NCARA program.
The following is the statistical breakdown
by foreign state chargeability of those registered for the DV-99
program:
Natives of the following countries
were not eligible to participate in DV-99: Canada, China (mainland
and Taiwan, except Hong Kong S.A.R.), Colombia, Dominican Republic,
El Salvador, India, Jamaica, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland,
South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its
dependent territories, and Vietnam.( United States Department
of State Bureau of Consular Affairs VISA BULLETIN,Number
87,Volume VII,Washington, D.C.[emphasis added][edited])
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