Haiti and Jamaica among countries not eligible for 2009 Diversity Visa Lottery Program Registration

WASHINGTON, DC – Applications for the 2009 Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery will be accepted between noon Eastern Daylight Time, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 and noon Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5) Sunday,
December 2, 2007.

Applicants may access the electronic Diversity Visa entry form at www.dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays. No entries will be accepted after noon EST on December 2, 2007.

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act(INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants.” Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of up to 55,000 Diversity Visas (DV) each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

The annual DV program makes diversity immigrant visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. A computer-generated random lottery drawing chooses selectees for diversity visas.

The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years.

Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

For DV-2009, natives of the following countries[1] are not eligible to apply because they sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the previous five years:Brasil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, 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 are eligible.

REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY

To enter the DV lottery, you must be a native of one of the eligible countries. Native of a country whose natives qualify: In most cases, this means the country in which you were born.

However, there are two other ways you may be able to qualify. First, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible but your spouse was born in a country whose natives are eligible, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth provided both you and your spouse are on the selected entry, are issued visas and enter the United States simultaneously. Second, if you were born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but neither of your parents was born there or resided there at the time of your birth, you may claim nativity in one of your parents’ country of birth if it is a country whose natives qualify for the DV-2009 program.

To enter the lottery, you must meet either the education or work experience requirement of the DV program.

Education or Work Experience: You must have either a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education; OR two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform. The U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net OnLine database will be used to determine qualifying work experience.