News Flash 08/22/03

NEWS FLASH:
DV-2005 VISA LOTTERY

August 22, 2003

The State Department has published this year's rules for the annual Diversity Visa (DV) lottery. Under this annual program, permanent residence (the "green card") is awarded to 55,000 winners per year who are natives of certain countries. Unlike prior years, this year's lottery entries must be submitted electronically. Mailed-in, paper entries are not permitted. Moreover, the photographs that accompany this year's entries must be transmitted electronically, and must conform to exacting technical specifications; otherwise, the lottery entry will be rejected or disqualified.

Natives of Canada, mainland China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam are NOT eligible to enter the visa lottery this year, unless certain exceptions apply. Natives of all other countries are eligible to enter the lottery, including persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan.

The 60-day application period for the upcoming DV lottery will be held between Saturday, November 1, 2003 and Tuesday, December 30, 2003. This lottery is referred to as DV-2005 because winners will receive green cards in FY 2005, i.e., between October 1, 2004 and September 30, 2005.

The State Department has issued detailed instructions relating to the DV-2005 lottery on its web site at http://www.travel.state.gov/dv2005.html. The instructions contain important information on who is eligible to apply and how to apply. They also provide a link to the electronic lottery entry form. By carefully following the State Department's instructions, entering the DV lottery can be accomplished without the assistance of an attorney or other consultant. The selection of winners is made at random and no law firm or other outside service can improve an applicant's chances of being chosen or guarantee an entry will win. The State Department charges no fee to enter the DV-2005 program. Only one entry per person is allowed; multiple entries for the same person will result in disqualification of all entries for that person.

The most difficult part of the lottery application process this year may be complying with the detailed technical requirements for the accompanying photographs. We are contacting immigration photo vendors to determine whether they can provide their customers with lottery-compliant, electronically transmissible images by e-mail and/or on disk. If there are vendors claiming to offer such services, we will pass along this information.