Winning the green card lottery can be as wonderful as it sounds, but it can also prove to be a disappointment.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, also referred to as “the green card lottery,” generates considerable excitement every fall when registration opens. “Winning the green card lottery” may sound wonderful, but it may also result in disappointment. (See I.N.A. * 203(c).)
People who would not otherwise qualify for green cards get them through the lottery each year, and others make their wait time for a green card shorter. However, some people who are lucky enough to win the lottery nonetheless end up without green cards, despite doing everything right and proving their eligibility under the lottery rules.
DV Lottery: A Great Opportunity
The United States immigration law offers only a few ways to qualify for a green card, and these ways tend to be narrowly defined. Most people get green cards because of a job offer or a close family member already settled in the U.S.-but even these categories leave out many people who would like to call the United States home. The diversity visa (DV) lottery gives those who are left out a chance they might not otherwise have.
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Furthermore, winning the DV lottery shortens what would otherwise be a long wait for many people who qualify for green cards in other ways. There is a quota (numerical limit) on most employment- and family-based categories of green card eligibility. There is a backlog in most of these categories because the demand exceeds the limited supply. In some categories, the wait is longer than in others, and within those categories, the wait is longer for people coming from high-demand countries.
Therefore, a person from India who holds a qualifying job offer in a professional occupation could typically expect to wait around ten years, and a person from the Philippines who qualifies through a U.S. citizen brother or sister could expect to wait well over twenty years! When the DV lottery opens every fall, people facing that kind of wait time would do well to enter.
There Are Many Reasons Why The Lottery Can Disappoint
It is not exactly a big open bet when it comes to the diversity visa lottery (DV). To begin with, people from parts of the world that send many immigrants to the U.S. will be disfavored, and people from some countries will not be able to participate at all. Additionally, the program sets basic eligibility requirements that exclude certain groups of people. Do You Meet the Education and Work Requirements for the Diversity Visa Program?
Even if you qualify under the DV rules and win the lottery, you’ll still have to go through the green card application process, and approval is anything but guaranteed. Every year, a number of people who are eligible, lucky enough to be chosen as “winners,” and diligent in pursuing their opportunity are excluded because of the program’s rules.
Why is that? Since there are tens of thousands more entrants than there are slots available, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) selects tens of thousands more applicants each year than slots are available. The annual supply of green card slots in the program may not be available to all “winners” at the same time.