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Just because you’ve been drawn in the green card DV lottery does not guarantee you will receive a visa to the United States. Whether you’ve already been selected in the green card DV lottery or whether you’re just beginning the DV application process, understanding how the green card lottery works and what to do if you’re selected are essential.
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What is the Green Card DV Lottery?
DV stands for “Diversity Visa,” and is part of a program begun in 1990 that each year gives 50,000 people from dozens of different countries the opportunity to enter the United States and, if they choose, begin the path to naturalized citizenship. The name “Diversity Visa” is given because visas are distributed only to people from countries that have low rates of immigration into the United States. Distributing the 50,000 visas to these countries essentially makes for a more diverse group of immigrants into the United States for each year the lottery is in effect.
How the Green Card Diversity Visa Lottery Works
The green card DV lottery is a lottery in the true sense of the word: green card recipients are selected completely at random, by a computer, from among the hundreds of thousands of qualified applicants. For this reason, it is essential to have your DV application be filled out correctly and submitted properly the first time. If the information is formatted wrong, or if it incorrectly suggests that you don’t meet qualifications that you actually meet, no one from the U.S. State Department will call you to fix the form. It will simply be disregarded and you will not be entered into the lottery.
What To Do If Selected
Thousands more applicants ‘win’ the lottery than actually receive green cards. If you are selected in the U.S. green card DV lottery, you will receive a letter in the mail from the U.S. Department of State. However, this does not mean you will receive your visa. Once chosen, you have to go through an interview process to confirm your eligibility for a U.S. Diversity Visa. Instructions on how to arrange this will be in the letter you receive, and you should move forward as soon as possible. If the 50,000 visas are given out before you have your interview and other follow-up steps, you will not get a visa, even though you were drawn in the DV lottery.
Asking For Green Card Lottery Assistance
Because so many people apply for the U.S. green card lottery, and because winning the lottery itself still does not guarantee getting a visa, it is important to be as prepared, accurate, and organized as possible. Green card lottery application assistance will not improve your chances of being selected in the lottery, but it can help you make sure you’re prepared and ready to go if your name is indeed selected.
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