USA Green Card Immigration Blog

Plaintiffs Lose Fight Over Green-Card Lottery – WSJ.com.

The State Department will throw out the results of this spring’s green-card lottery and hold a new drawing, dashing the hopes of 22,000 entrants whom the government said it had erroneously chosen as winners in a May draw.

A federal judge Thursday denied a request by plaintiffs who hail from Asia, Africa and Europe to stop a new drawing from taking place and to recognize them as winners despite the computer error that led to their selection.

The results of the new drawing will be available Friday on the lottery’s website, a State Department spokeswoman said.

This year, a record 15 million people from around the world submitted entries to the free green-card lottery, which offers a quick path to legal permanent residency in the U.S. for 50,000 people selected by random draw.

In early May, 22,000 people checked the State Department’s lottery website and learned they had been chosen. But soon after, the government informed them that the electronic draw would have to be held again because a computer error caused 90% of the winners to be selected from the first two days of applications instead of from the entire 30-day registration period.

The government told affected individuals they would be re-entered in a fresh drawing because the lottery hadn’t been random, as required by law.

The 22,000 entrants orchestrated a publicity campaign and launched legal action to address their situation.

Their lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., included plaintiffs from more than 20 countries.

The court hearing earlier this week focused on the meaning of “random.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that they had been randomly chosen and that they didn’t know that by filling their applications in the first two days that they would gain any advantage. They also contended that the “outcome was indeed not uniform, but nevertheless still random as required by law.”

The State Department argued that the results didn’t represent a fair, random selection.

Under the program, visas are made available to applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. Winners have the opportunity to move to the U.S. without a family member or employer as a sponsor, the usual routes to obtaining permanent residency.

Launched in 1990 to promote diversity in the immigrant population, the lottery is now open to people from almost anywhere in the world, except countries that already have a large number of nationals in the U.S., including Mexico, China, India and the Philippines. No special skills are required beyond a high-school diploma. Lottery winners eventually can apply for U.S. citizenship.

The number of entries has been on the rise.

This year’s total is more than 2.5 times greater than five years ago, when the lottery attracted 5.5 million entries. Immigration scholars attribute the increase to the spread of Internet connectivity and greater awareness of the lottery, which is free to enter.

Every year, the U.S. Department of State conducts a congressionally-mandated lottery called the Diversity Visa Lottery program that grants around 50,000 U.S. permanent resident visas to foreign nationals who meet certain eligibility standards specified by the U.S. law. Such diversity visas are available only to nationals of countries with relatively low U.S. immigration rates. Under this visa lottery program, successful participants are granted permanent residence and work status.

Diversity Visa Lottery Process and Distribution

•The visas are distributed on a regional basis. The maximum number of visas under the visa lottery program will go to regions with lower rates of immigration to the U.S.

•No visas will go to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past 5 years.

•Foreign nationals belonging to countries, such as Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are also eligible.

•It should be noted that in a year, no single country can receive more than 7% of the total number of visas.

Those interested in joining the Green Card visa lottery program have to register electronically, through the internet. It must be noted that the one-month registration period for submitting an entry to register for the U.S. Green Card Lottery 2012, also known as DV-2012, ended at noon on 3 November 2010, Eastern Daylight time.

Every year, applicants are expected to complete the electronic Diversity Visa Lottery application form. After the completion of green card application, applicants are required to submit photos for all family members included on the lottery registration and pay the processing fee. If registration is done at www.usa-green-card.com, their entire registration process will be taken care of by a professional team from USA Green Card. They will not only help process their DV-2012 applications, but also offer free airfare to the U.S. for successful visa applicants who registered through them.

The 2010 DV Lottery, commonly known as the “Green Card Lottery,” started on October 5, 2010 and will run through November 3, 2010.

The visa lottery, an official program of the US Government, grants 50,000 visas each year to qualified individuals and their immediate family members.  The programis open to everyone who satisfies basic nationality and work/education requirements.

USA Green Card provides professional assistance with the application preparation and submission process.  You can learn more about this year’s requirements and prepare your application electronically at http://www.USA-Green-Card.com

Interested applicants are encouraged to complete their registrations immediately to avoid possible server delays caused by high Internet traffic as the November 3rd deadline approaches.

Entries for the DV-2011 DV Lottery must be submitted electronically between October 2, 2009 and November 30, 2009. Applicants may access the electronic DV Entry Form at http://www.usa-green-card.com/GC_FormApplication.asp during the registration period. Paper entries will not be accepted. Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter. Heavy demand may result in website delays.