Washington – More than 6.4 million
entries have been received for the 2008 Diversity Visa
Lottery, the State Department announced December 15.
The registration period for the program,
which is designed to bring greater racial and ethnic diversity
to the United States, ended December 3. No additional
entries are being accepted.
Applicants whose names will be selected
randomly will be eligible to apply for one of 50,000 permanent
resident visas made available annually to persons from
countries with low rates of immigration to the United
States.
In its announcement, the State Department
warned that there have been “several attempts”
to defraud Diversity Visa Lottery entrants. Winners will
be notified by mail between April and July 2007 and only
by the Department of State’s Kentucky Consular Center,
the State Department said. “No other organization
or company is authorized by the Department of State to
contact winning entrants.”
Notifications mailed from the Kentucky
Consular Center will provide further instructions, including
information on fees connected with immigration to the
United States.
Africa accounts for 41 percent of the
total applications received during the two-month electronic
registration period, from October 4, 2006, through December
3, 2006. Asia accounts for 38 percent, Europe for 19 percent,
and South America, Central America, and the Caribbean
for 2 percent.
Bangladesh was the country with the largest
number of applicants, with more than 1.7 million, followed
by Nigeria with 684,000 and Ukraine with 619,000.
Once dependents are taken into account,
the total number of participants in the 2008 lottery exceeds
10 million. The 2007 Diversity Visa Lottery attracted
more than 5.5 million applications, and approximately
82,000 people in 175 nations received letters from the
U.S. State Department informing them that they were eligible
to apply for a permanent resident visa to the United States.
(See related article.)
Additional
information on the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program
is available on the State Department Web site.
For additional information on U.S. policies,
see Immigration
Reform and Population
and Diversity.
Jeffrey Thomas
USINFO Staff Writer
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