Green Card Lottery
Each year a US congressionally mandated lottery program takes place for people who want to obtain a green card. This program is administered by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It is a time that many immigrants wait and prepare for eagerly. Besides employee or family sponsorship or asylum, this is the only other way to obtain legal residency in the United States. Congress passed the Green Card Lottery law first in 1986 with intentions to allow the United States to become more diversified but the first lottery was not conducted until 1990. The likelihood of winning the green card lottery really depends on how many people from your region are migrating during that particular period but the odds are generally somewhere between 1/50-1/200. You can however enter once per year providing that entries from your region are being accepted that particular year. If you attempt to enter more than once, you will be disqualified for that year. Your odds do increase if you are married as each of you are allowed to enter and if one obtains a green card during the lottery pull, the other will get a Green Card as well
Annually, about 11.6 million people will enter this lottery in 2007; the number seems to increase annually. By law, only 55,000 green cards will be made available but 5,000 Green Cards will be specifically designated for Nicaraguan and Central American relief. That results in the remaining 50,000 for anyone else that enters the lottery. Entrants can only be made electronically but the lottery is conducted at the Kentucky Consular Center.
There are no specific age requirements to enter the green card lottery but since there are education and work experience requirements, anyone under the age of 18 really does hold much of a chance of winning. The other criteria are that when an immigrant wins the lottery and then has to apply for the Green Card, they have to have a high school diploma or an equivalent or two years of work experience within the past five years. If you have a Green Card application pending through a sponsor such as family or an employer, you can still enter the lottery. Once one is approved, the other will be discarded. This is because when you enter the green card lottery it is basically the same as filing for an immigrant petition.
When you fill out the GreenCard lottery application you will want to list your natural children any step children and adopted children regardless of age or marital status. List them all but only unmarried children under the age of 21 will be allowed to apply for a green card if you were to win. This year (2007), the DV-2009 green card lottery online begins at noon EDT on October 3, 2007 and ends at noon EST on December 2, 2007. The entry forms are never accessible before those dates but you are welcome to browse through the year prior’s instructions and regulations to aid in preparation for the entry date.
