2008 Press Releases
The Embassy of the United States of America announces the Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery 2010.
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. The Program makes available 55,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas 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 citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in 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-2010, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because the countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the previous five years:
BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, ECUADOR, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, PERU, POLAND, 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. For DV-2010, Russia has returned to the list of eligible countries. Kosovo has also been added to the list of eligible countries.
Applications for the 2010 Diversity Visa Lottery Program will be accepted from October 2 to December 1, 2008 on the Department of State web page at www.dvlottery.state.gov.
Individuals wishing to participate in the program can find DV-2010 Information packages in English on the U.S. Department of State website at http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html, and, starting October 7, 2008, in Russian, on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Belarus (http://belarusian.minsk.usembassy.gov/visa_services.html) in the ‘Visa Services’ menu.
I M P O R T A N T N O T I C E
THERE IS NO FEE TO ENTER THE ANNUAL DV PROGRAM. THE U.S. GOVERNMENT EMPLOYS NO OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS OR PRIVATE MAIL SERVICES TO OPERATE THE DV PROGRAM. ANY INTERMEDIARIES OR OTHERS WHO OFFER ASSISTANCE TO PREPARE DV CASEWORK FOR APPLICANTS DO SO WITHOUT THE AUTHORITY OR CONSENT OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. USE OF ANY OUTSIDE INTERMEDIARY OR ASSISTANCE TO PREPARE A DV ENTRY IS ENTIRELY AT THE APPLICANT'S DISCRETION.
A QUALIFIED ENTRY RECEIVED DIRECTLY FROM AN APPLICANT HAS AN EQUAL CHANCE OF BEING SELECTED BY THE COMPUTER AT THE KENTUCKY CONSULAR CENTER AS DOES AN ENTRY RECEIVED THROUGH A PAID INTERMEDIARY WHO COMPLETES THE ENTRY FOR THE APPLICANT. THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE TO MAILING EARLY OR MAILING FROM ANY PARTICULAR PLACE. EVERY ENTRY RECEIVED DURING THE MAIL-IN PERIOD WILL HAVE AN EQUAL RANDOM CHANCE OF BEING SELECTED WITHIN ITS REGION. HOWEVER, RECEIPT OF MORE THAN ONE ENTRY PER PERSON WILL DISQUALIFY THE PERSON FROM REGISTRATION, REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE OF THAT ENTRY.
The Embassy of the United States of America in the Republic of Belarus