DV 2013 Winners,What’s Next?

After winning the Green Card Lottery, DV 2013 winners need to get in touch with the Kentucky Consular Center to begin applying for a visa to the United States.

The process of applying for a visa a bit more complicated than the registration period and looks into a variety of relevant immigration issues:

  • Applicant’s current immigration status and potential criminal history.
  • Family members who will and will not be coming with the applicant.
  • Confirmation of education requirement.
  • Confirmation of country-of-origin.
  • Among a variety of other questions that will be asked during the process.

If you live outside of the United States you will need to follow the instructions listed on the State Department’s Diversity Visa website where you have already checked your confirmation number.

However, if you are already in the United States legally you will need to contact the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for further instruction.

Statistics for the DV 2013

  • 12,577,463 applications were registered between October 4 and November 5, 2011.
  • 7,941,400 of the above registered applications were qualified enough to be considered for the lottery.
  • 105,628 of the total qualified registrations were selected in the lottery.
  • Approximately 50,000 of those selected will be able to proceed to applying for a visa.

The State Department selects more winners than they have green cards to issue because of a few different reasons:

  • Not everyone pursues their green card applications after winning.
  • Not everyone is qualified for a green card even though they may be qualified for the lottery registration.
  • Some people are not able to demonstrate that they meet the education requirements sufficiently.