State Department announces results of visa lottery for 1999 (05/17/98)

State Department announces results of visa lottery for 1999

WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department on May 6 announced that nearly 90,000 applicants for the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program for 1999 (DV-99) have been registed and notified that they can apply for permanent resident visas (green cards).

The State Department also provided a statistical breakdown by country of those registered for the DV-99 program. Ukraine had 5,047 persons registered for the visa lottery.

There will be a visa lottery program for the year 2000; applications will be accepted in the time period between October 1 and 31, 1998.

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Following is the text of the statement by James B. Foley, deputy spokesman of the State Department.

The National Visa Center at Portsmouth, N.H., has registered and notified the winners of the DV-99 diversity lottery. The diversity lottery was conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. [The Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act (NCARA) passed by Congress in November 1997 stipulates that beginning with DV-99, and for as long as necessary, 5,000 of the 55,000 annually allocated diversity visas will be made available for use under the NCARA program.]

Almost 90,000 applicants have been registered and notified and may now make an application for an immigrant visa. Since it is likely that some of the first 50,000 persons registered will not pursue their cases to visa issuance, this larger figure should ensure that all DV-99 numbers will be used during fiscal year 1999 (October 1, 1998, until September 30, 1999).

Applicants registered for the DV-99 program were selected at random from the approximately 3.4 million qualified entries received during the one-month application period which ran from noon on October 24, 1997, through noon on November 24, 1997. An additional 2.4 million applications received inside and outside of the mail-in period were disqualified for failing to properly follow directions.

The visas have been apportioned among six geographic regions with a maximum of 3,500 visas (7 percent of the 50,000 total) available to persons born in any single country. During the visa interview, principal applicants must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent, or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience within the past five years.

Those selected will need to act on their immigrant visa applications quickly. Applicants should follow the instructions in their notification letter and must fully complete the information requested. Registrants living legally in the United States who wish to apply for adjustment of their status must contact the Immigration and Naturalization Service for information on the requirements and procedures. Once the total 50,000 visa numbers have been used, the program for fiscal year 1999 will end. Selected applicants who do not receive visas by September 30, 1999, will derive no further benefit from their DV-99 registration. Similarly, spouses and children accompanying or following to join DV-99 principal applicants are entitled to derivative DV status only until September 30, 1999.

Only participants in the DV-99 program who were selected for further processing have been notified. Those who have not received notification were not selected and may wish to try for next year's DV-2000 lottery. The dates for the mail-in period for the DV-2000 lottery are scheduled from noon on October 1, 1998 until noon on October 31, 1998. Instructions on entering the DV-2000 program will be widely publicized in August 1998.