The Green Card Lottery (otherwise known as the Diversity Visa Lottery) is well-known for its limited number of entry requirements and its equal opportunity stance regarding immigration to the United States.
For this reason, many people who want to enter the United States, but don’t have relatives or an employer in the US, use the lottery to gain permission to enter the country and live there legally.
Approximately 50,000 visas are granted every year, but over 12 million people apply for the lottery annually.
Each visas category has a trade-off, just as the Green Card Lottery is quite easy to enter into and to qualify for, the chances for winning are modest at best. However, the trade-off for a family based visa is that in exchange for near certainty of a visa, an applicant may have to wait for up to a decade to get their visa.
Country of Origin Requirement
Since the whole point of the Green Card Lottery is to increase the diversity within immigration numbers to the United States, the Department of State must find some way to separate out those who have the best chances to immigrate to the United States.
Certain countries from all around the world are selected to be excluded from the lottery to better give others a chance at immigration. This list of countries is effectively a list of countries which send a large number of immigrants to the United States year after year.
The reason why more people emigrate from these places than others may be because:
- The people from these countries have desirable skills that American employers happen to want or need.
- So many people have emigrated from this country already that it is either easy or convenient for their already emigrated counterparts to sponsor the immigration of their remaining family members.
The State Department also puts statistical restrictions on regions so that one region does not receive more winners than another.
Education Requirement
Applicants can fulfill the education requirement in one of two ways, either by formal education or through occupational education.
If you have graduated from a typical four year high school type program, you can most likely show your diploma or graduation documentation to fulfill this requirement.
People who have two years of experience in a job which took two years to train for can also use that job to show that they have sufficient education.
The whole point of this requirement is to show the U.S. government that you have the capacity to get a job and take care of yourself when you enter the United States. The government does not condone the entry of immigrants to the United States to only become wards of the state, or people who are dependent on the benefits of the government.
As a result, there are certain occupations which are acceptable for the above exception to formal education. Find out if your profession is accepted here.