Participating in the green card free lottery

Do you want to participate in the green card free lottery program? Before that here are a few important points you need to know about the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program. The Department of State conducts this program every year.

As the name implies, this green card free lottery program is indeed free. No submission fee is involved. This program provides 50,000 green cards every year to eligible immigrants. Eligible immigrants? Yes. As an applicant, you need to meet simple, but strict eligibility requirements. Not all countries are eligible. So the first and primary eligibility criteria is that you should be from a qualifying country. The eligible country would normally be the same as your country of birth and is not related to where you live. Secondly, you should have at least a high school education or its equivalent.

So, your next question will be, how do I know if my country is eligible? Countries from which large number of immigrants move to the US are not eligible. If more than 50,000 persons under the family and employment based visa categories from your country immigrated to the US during the last five years, you will not qualify for the current year's DV lottery. Within each region, no single country will receive more than seven percent of the available visas in this program in any one year. If you are not from a qualifying country, you can apply if your spouse if from an eligible country.

Completing the green card lottery application :

You have to list your spouse and all your unmarried children below 21 years of age including all natural children as well as legally-adopted children and stepchildren, even if your child no longer resides with you or even if you do not plan to take this child to the US under the DV program, However, you need not list your child/children who is/are already a U.S. citizen or a Legal Permanent Resident (LPR).

Signatures are not needed while filing. But you have to submit all required photographs. You should electronically submit your recent photograph along with the one of your spouse and each unmarried child under 21 years of age. If you submit more than one entry, you will be disqualified regardless of who submitted the entry. You can submit your own entry, or have someone else submit the entry for you. But a husband and wife can each submit one entry if each meet the eligibility requirements for the green card lottery program. You can either be in the U.S. or in another country, and the application can be submitted from the United States or from abroad.

You have to electronically submit your application at www.dvlottery.state.gov . Paper entries will not be accepted. Once you have submitted your application for the green card free lottery program successfully, you will get a confirmation for the same. It is very important that you print or write down the confirmation number as this confirmation will be given only once and at the time of your filing. You can check the status of your application with this confirmation number. However, if you still lose this confirmation, you will still receive a letter from the Kentucky Consular Center by mail informing you of your selection, if you are successful. You will not receive any additional notification if your entry is unsuccessful.Green Card Lottery is the best way to get green card to USA.