The Green Card Lottery program, also known as the Diversity visa program, is currently accepting applications for green cards to be issued in the year 2014. The registration period is relatively short, only lasting for a month, most of October and the first few days of November. In order to be registered for the next Diversity Visa issuance applicants must submit their paperwork by noon on November 3, 2012.
Two years may seem a long time to wait for a permanent residency card, but compared to the other routes that immigrants may take to get a green card this interval is quite short. Many of the other green cards are distributed on a schedule that may take up to 15 years! Green cards grant immigrants the right to live, work and study in the United States indefinitely and are the first step to gaining eventual citizenship. Permanent Residency is the only legal way for individuals to immigrate to the United States. All other visas are considered to be non-immigrant visas.
Registration for the Green Card Lottery is relatively easy with USAGreenCardLottery.org which helps applicants make sure that their forms are correctly filled out and will be accepted by the United States State Department, the administrator of the lottery.
Eligibility requirements to be entered into the lottery are few. One must be from a country that traditionally does not have many emigrants leave for the United States and the applicant must also have at least a high school education or two years of work experience on a job that required two years of vocational training.
Applicants are chosen by a weighted-random computer in order to increase the fairness of the lottery on the first day of May the year following the registration period, 2013. Be sure to register for the Green Card Lottery today and immigrate to the United States!