Quarterly Update on Immigration Law

Instructions for the 2010 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2010)

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State. The Program makes available 55,000 permanent resident visas (green cards) annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however, 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 (7%) percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

Countries Not Eligible

For DV-2008, 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 (the term "country" in this notice includes countries, economies and other jurisdictions explicitly listed in this notice):

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.

Electronic Registration

The Department of State implemented the electronic registration system beginning with DV-2005 in order to make the Diversity Visa proves more efficient and secure.  The Department utilizes special technology and other means to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or who submit multiple entries.  For DV-2010, for the first time, those who submit entries may check the status of entries online and determine whether their entries are selected or not selected.  Successful entrants will continue to receive notification letters by mail.

Application Submission Dates

Entries for the DV-2010 Diversity Visa Lottery must be submitted electronically between noon,  (EDT) (GMT-4), Thursday, October 2, 2008 and noon, EST (GMT-5), Monday, December 1, 2008. Applicants may access the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form (EDV Entry Form) at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period beginning noon, EST October 5, 2005. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged to not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in web site delays. No entries will be accepted after noon, EST, on December 1, 2008.

Requirements for Entry and Detailed Instructions may be found at http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html.