Thread: Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery Program Opens Oct. 4th

United States: Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery Program Opens Oct. 4th

Last Updated: September 28 2016
Article by John R. Gotaskie, Jr.Fox Rothschild LLP

The State Department announced that it will begin accepting applications for the FY 2018 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program—commonly called the diversity visa (DV) lottery—beginning Tuesday, October 4, 2016. Applicants who are selected and approved may apply for a green card starting on October 1, 2018.

Each year, the State Department randomly selects 50,000 immigrant visa applications from a pool of foreign national applicants who were born in certain countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. The State Department will accept diversity visa applications for FY 2018 beginning on Tuesday, October 4, until Monday, November 7.

Applicants who are selected in the lottery must meet certain requirements before becoming eligible to apply for lawful permanent residency (i.e., apply for a green card).

First, applicants must be born in countries that have historically low immigration rates. Individuals born in the following countries are ineligible to apply for a DV for fiscal year 2018: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born**), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories and Vietnam. Most notably, nationals of Ecuador are eligible to apply in this year's diversity visa lottery program, a change from being ineligible in years past. Those not born in an eligible country may still be able to apply for a DV through a spouse (if that spouse was born in an eligible country) or, in certain circumstances, through a parent.

Secondly, each DV applicant must have at least a high school education or its equivalent or, alternatively, have two years of work experience in a position that requires at least two years of education, training or experience to perform. The State Department encourages applicants to avoid procrastination in applying, as heavy demand in their application system may cause delays or other technical errors. Applicants will be able to check if they were selected in the randomized lottery starting May 2, 2017.

Employers, including franchisors and franchisees, are often interested in having a qualifying employee apply for a diversity visa in order to avoid costly traditional employment-based green card applications (such as first conducting mandatory advertisements in connection with a PERM filing with the Department of Labor). Both employers who encourage their foreign employees to apply, as well as any other prospective individual applicants, should be mindful of complex requirements in order to avoid rejection, denial or other avoidable issues throughout the diversity visa application process.
**Note: Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.




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United States: 2018 Immigrant Visa Lottery Opens In Two Weeks

Last Updated: September 23 2016
Article by David Grunblatt, Mazal Gavrielov, Erica Loomba, Valarie H. McPherson, Praveena Nallainathan and Jennifer WexlerProskauer Rose LLP

The Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery Registration for 2018 opens Tuesday, October 4, 2016. Entries must be submitted electronically at:
https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ between noon on October 4, 2016 and noon on November 7, 2016, Eastern Standard Time. Qualified applicants are strongly encouraged to register as early as possible. Heavy demand may result in system delays in the final days of the registration period.

The DV Lottery is administered annually by the Department of State, and provides immigrant visas (green cards) each year to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. This year there are 50,000 DVs available. 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 natives of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years.

Who Can Enter?

Natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.

Natives of Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.

People who cannot register because their country of birth is excluded may be able to qualify through a spouse who was born in an eligible country.

In addition, successful registrants 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 job.

How to Enter

A foreign national must submit an online form and a digital photo through the official DV lottery website. Only one entry is permitted per person. If there are multiple registrations on behalf of one person, all of them are disqualified. There is no cost to apply.

All DV Lottery entrants will be required to visit the E-DV Entrant Status Check website to find out whether or not their entry has been selected in the DV Lottery. Selectees will be notified of their selection through the Entry Status Check available starting May 2, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Selectees will be directed to a confirmation page that will provide further instructions, including information on fees connected with immigration to the United States.

Selectees will be able to apply for permanent residence in fiscal year 2018, which is October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. The E-DV Entry Status Check website will be the only means by which selectees will be notified of their selection for the DV Lottery. To guard against fraud, please note the official website is the only legitimate source for lottery entrants.

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United States: US Green Card Availability To Increase Beginning October 1

Last Updated: September 14 2016
Article by Matthew C. Schulz

Effective October 1, 2016, green cards will become more readily available for most people immigrating to the United States on employment-based (EB) immigrant visa categories.

The US State Department announced in the October 2016 edition of its Visa Bulletin that the agency is processing requests under the EB1 category for all countries of birth, effective October 1. This category includes aliens of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational managers and executives, regardless of place of birth. During the summer, the agency reported a lengthy backlog for EB1 immigrants born in mainland China and India.

The EB2 category—for professionals with an advanced degree and aliens of exceptional ability—is also immediately available, except for individuals born in mainland China and India, for whom the category is backlogged to February 15, 2012, and January 15, 2007, respectively.

The EB3 category—for professionals and skilled workers—has limited available for all places of birth. That said, the backlog for most places is to June 1, 2016, and it is not likely to slow the process of immigration, since the Department of Labor generally takes more than four months to grant the alien employment certification application, often referred to as PERM, longer and that is a prerequisite for EB3 immigration.

The EB5 category—for investors—is currently available for all places of birth except mainland China, which continues to be where the majority of EB5 immigrants are born. EB5 is unavailable for China-born investors in projects in Regional Centers, while EB5 is available to China-born investors in non-Regional Center projects who have I-526 immigrant petition receipt dates on or before February 22, 2014.

There is an annual limited supply of immigrant visas in all EB categories that is replenished effective October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. In categories where the annual demand tends to be greater than the limited supply, the Visa Bulletins issued for October through April often show the most movement. There is often more movement in the dates for individuals born in mainland China and India during these months. The EB1 and EB5 dates that have improved so much since the September 2016 Visa Bulletin are likely to retrogress once again later in the fiscal year, but the State Department did not release a prediction as to when or by how much.

The full text of the October 2016 Visa Bulletin can be found here.

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United States: 2018 Diversity Visa Lottery Program: Cuba, Ecuador, And Guatemala Eligible To Register

Last Updated: September 26 2016
Article by Maria Mejia-OpaciuchCarlton Fields

For the 26th year, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) has issued registration instructions for the annual Diversity Visa (DV) lottery. Registration for the 2018 lottery opens 12 noon eastern daylight time (EDT) on October 4, 2016, and closes 12 noon EDT on November 7, 2016. As in the past, only electronic applications will be accepted by completing the DV form at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov., the only site to accept the DV lottery applications.

There is no fee for online submission. There is no paper submission to the DOS. The DOS will only accept one entry per person during this registration period. Those who apply more than once will be disqualified. The DOS will issue a confirmation number once the online application has been submitted. It is critical to save this number as the DOS will not re-issue one to the applicant if it is misplaced.

Natives of the following countries are ineligible to apply through this year's DV lottery program because their countries sent a total of more than 50,000 immigrants (those issued green cards) to the United States in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Viet Nam. Of special note, persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible. Further, persons from Ecuador, Cuba, and Guatemala are eligible this year, a change from last year. The DOS will accept applications from an applicant spouse whose non-applicant spouse is born in an eligible country.

To qualify for the DV lottery visa, the applicant must have a high school diploma or its equivalent (GED is not an equivalent); or within five years of applying, at least two years of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two years' training or experience. The DOS relies on the U.S. Department of Labor listing of occupations requiring two years training or experience.


Note the following registration procedure changes: the DOS will only accept photos submitted as part of the DV lottery entry package that are no older than 6 months at the time of the electronic submission; and applicants are prohibited from wearing eyeglasses in the photographs.

DV lottery program entrants can check the DV lottery program website in May 2017 by using their DV confirmation number to see if they have been selected. The DOS will not notify entrants of their selection.

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