The Green Card Lottery is an annual immigration program that gives 50,000 immigration visas to lucky winners every year. The program is mandated by Congress and overseen by the U.S. State Department.
You have your chance to enter in the Green Card Lottery right now up until November 2, 2013! Register today and you could be a winner in 2014!
Many applicants for the Green Card Lottery want to know how the winners are accepted. The State Department takes many measures to make sure that the resulting winners of the lottery represent a fair cross section of international green card holder hopefuls.
Lottery registrants find out if they have won or not by checking their status. The first time that they will be able to do this for DV 2015 (the Green Card Lottery that is currently registering people) is on May 1, 2014. Folks who registered for this lottery will no longer be able to check their status on June 30, 2015. In fact, after December 31, 2013, no more green cards will be given out for this particular lottery.
The world is divided into several regions, regardless of which countries are not eligible for the Green Card Lottery. No one of these regions are allowed more than their fair share of green cards.
Each country also has a maximum number of green cards that can be granted to its residents.
After a winner has checked their status, they can then proceed in applying for an immigration visa. If that application is successful they will then be able to apply for entry at a U.S. port-of-entry.
After entering the United States with an immigration visa, winners will then be mailed their green cards!