Visas
Immigrant Visas
The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The U. S. Embassy in Moscow will only accept Diversity Visa applications from persons normally resident within the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan. Diversity Visa applicants will be required to provide proof of their registration in Russia (permanent or temporary) to establish their eligibility for visa processing in Moscow. Residents of Turkmenistan must present their travel passport at the time of the interview.
The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.
The 2009 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2009)
The Department of State has announced the opening of the 2009 Diversity Visa lottery. The Diversity Visa (DV) 2009 Lottery online entry begins at Noon Eastern Daylight Time on October 3, 2007, and ends at Noon Eastern Standard Time on December 2, 2007.
As noted above, countries from which there were more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States during the previous five years are not eligible to participate in the Diversity Visa Program. Russia is one of the countries not eligible to participate in the Diversity Visa Program under this rule.
The list of countries not participating in the Diversity Visa Program include Brazil, Canada, China (mainland born), Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.
Information on the Diversity Visa Program, including instructions for entering the Diversity Visa lottery, is available online at: http://www.dvlottery.state.gov
