Entering the Green Card Lottery
So many people around the world want to live and work in the United States of America, and have the rights and privileges – and responsibilities – of a US citizen. The culture of freedom and opportunity, along with the USA’s excellent record on human rights means that many people are queuing up to get their Green Card.
A Green Card is the colloquial name for a permanent residency card. A green card lottery is one way of obtaining a green card – the other way is to have a family member or a legal wife/husband who is a citizen of the USA (who remembers the Julia Roberts movie Green Card?).
The green card lottery system was set up in 1990. The more formal name for the green card lottery is the “Diversity Immigrant Visa” program. The green card lottery grants permanent residency visas to 50,000 immigrants a year. But some countries are not eligible for the green card lottery. These countries are those who have had 50,000 or more emigrants to the USA in the last ten years. This is to ensure that the population of the US remains diverse and multicultural.
Each green card lottery is referred to with the prefix DV plus the year the green card lottery is for. The current round is referred to as DV-2008, as the green card lottery is for visas that will be issued in 2008. Applications for this green card lottery are now closed.
The “winners” of the green card lottery are distributed around the countries the applicants currently live in, with countries that have not had many green card lottery “winners” in the last five years getting a more generous share.
If you are wishing to enter the green card lottery with the hopes of becoming a US citizen, you must be aware of several things. Firstly, the green card lottery is indeed a lottery and not everyone who enters will “win” the prize of a Green Card. Secondly, to enter the green card lottery, you have to fit certain requirements regarding skills and education.
Would-be citizens of the US also need to be aware of green card lottery scams. Do not believe any advertisement that promises to improve your chances of winning the green card lottery. As the green card lottery is a random process, this is impossible. Be very careful about online applications for the green card lottery and only apply via official sites – read the small print carefully (those annoying green card lottery pop-ups are never official).
There is some debate going on in the House of Representatives over whether the green card lottery system should be abolished, as there is a risk of fraud and because there is no guarantee that a winner of a green card lottery is not a terrorist. At the moment, however, the green card lottery is still in place. Frank j Vanderlugt owns and operates http://www.green-card-lotery.com 2 Greencardloterycom
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