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How To Apply for the Green Card Lottery
This bulletin gives a summary of how to apply for the
Green Card Lottery. The information here is general and pertains to the
2009 lottery; the 2010 lottery information will be available starting October
2008. This will give you a general understanding of what to expect for the
2010. The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is the way in which immigrants can
come to the United States with a Green Card. This annual program
provides for those immigrants who meet the eligibility requirements outlined in
this bulletin. There are six regions where these particular visas (green cards)
are distributed to areas where there are a low number of immigrants coming to
the US first, and then to those who have sent less than 50,000 immigrants to
the US in the period of five years. In 2009, natives from 20 countries were not
allowed to apply for the Green Card because of this stipulation.
The Green Card Lottery is done on an annual basis and is administered through
the US Department of State. Section 203(c) of the Immigration and National Act
(INA), Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA
203 all provide for the immigrants in the class of "diversity immigrants". This
allows for 50,000 immigrants each year.
In order to enter the United States in the Green Card Lottery an immigrant must
be a native of one of the following regions: Africa , Asia, Europe, North
America (The Bahamas only), Oceania, South America, including Central America
and The Caribbean To see the complete list of the eligible and non eligible
countries enter: requirements
Each member of a family must apply with a separate picture and information
about the individual. A husband and wife, brothers and sisters, all children
under the age of 21 must apply and anyone living in a household together may
apply. A husband and wife can apply separately. Each person can only apply one
time in any year (Green Card Lottery updates)
OCCUPATIONAL PREFERENCES
Only those jobs in zones 4 or 5 with a preparation (SVP) level of 7.0 or higher
will be accepted. In order to find out if your job qualifies, you must go to
the O*Net Online Database. You can do a search for this on the Internet. When
you get there, click on find occupations, go to Job Family and choose the
"family" that your job fits into, click on the specific occupation and click on
Job Zone (located in blue line above the name of the occupation). This will
give you exactly what zone and what SVP level your job fits into.
HOW ARE APPLICANTS CHOSEN?
There is a random drawing for all those who have qualified. Those who are
picked are sent notices by a certain date; those who are not picked will not
receive notification.
You are welcome to copy this article or any article in this site to your web site. If you do so please add the following comment in the bottom of the page:
"this article was taken from www.usagc.org green card lottery information and registration website."
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