Visa Services
U.S. Embassy Announces Start of 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery Season
October 05, 2006
The U. S. Embassy in Bahrain has announced the opening of this year's Diversity Visa Program (known as the "visa lottery" or "DV-2008") as of Wednesday October 4, 2006. Entries for the DV-2008 Diversity Visa lottery must be submitted electronically between 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4) October 4, 2006, and 12:00 noon (GMT-4) Sunday, December 3, 2006.
The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. All entries by an individual will be disqualified if more than ONE entry for that individual is received, regardless of who submitted the entry Applicants may submit their own entries or have someone do it for them, but there is NO FEE to enter the DV Lottery If you are selected in the DV Lottery, normal visa application fees will apply. The U.S. Government employs no outside consultants or private services to operate the DV program. Any intermediaries or others who offer assistance to prepare DV entries 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 entrant's discretion.
In order to receive a Diversity Visa to immigrate to the United States, those chosen in the random drawing must meet ALL eligibility requirements under U.S. law In general, applicants must have a high school education or its equivalent, or two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training Applicants must also be a native of a country whose citizens qualify.
Applicants may access the electronic Diversity Visa entry form during the registration period Paper entries will not be accepted Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter, because heavy demand may result in website delays. DV entrants will receive electronic confirmation upon receipt of a completed Electronic Diversity Visa application.
Incorrect or incomplete applications will be disqualified, please refer to the detailed instructions on Travel.state.gov.
A computer-generated random lottery drawing chooses selectees for diversity visas. 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 nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the period of 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.
Only citizens of eligible countries may enter the lottery. This year all countries of Africa and the Middle East are eligible Brazil, Canada, China (mainland), Columbia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its independent territories, and Vietnam are not eligible Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.