USA Green Card Lottery
The United States Permanent Resident Card, usually known by its popular nickname of “green card,” is an identification card used by aliens in the United States to attest to their status of being a permanent resident. The card is used to prove that the holder is a Lawful Permanent Resident of the country, and can therefore live and work in the United States. The application process for obtaining a green card can take a lengthy period of time, though immigrants can apply for temporary permits to work and live while the process is under way.
The United States has a program that they call the Diversity Immigrant Visa program – this is also known as the Green Card Lottery. This is a congressionally mandated lottery program that allows some people to receive their green cards/Permanent Resident Cards. The lottery program is held annually and administered by the Department of State. The Immigration Act of 1990 added a new class of immigrants, called “diversity immigrants,” and the Green Card Lottery is there to facilitate this. The Immigration Act of 1990 and the resulting lottery make fifty thousand permanent resident visas available each year to those immigrants from countries with low immigration to the United States numbers.
People that were born in any country or territory that has sent more than fifty thousand immigrants to the United States in the five years previous cannot be eligible for a diversity visa and take part in the Green Card Lottery. These ineligible countries may change from year to year, depending on the immigration numbers. For example, for 2009, people born in Brazil, Canada, mainland China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, India, Mexico, Pakistan, the UK (excluding Northern Ireland), Vietnam and a few others are ineligible for the Green Card Lottery.
The fifty thousand “immigrants” cap does not refer to refugees or asylum seekers or previous diversity immigrants. It only refers to people that came via the employment, family sponsorship, or immediate relatives categories. The number of visas eligible countries will receive is based on the numbers of immigrants previously sent to the United States. Those countries that have sent fewer numbers will get a proportionately larger amount of visas to use. The Green Card Lottery is only open for applications for a certain time period each year, so you must keep an eye out for the dates if you plan to apply for a diversity immigrant visa.