Only 8 million people entered the DV-2013 Green Card Lottery

According to the US State Department, only eight million people entered the DV-2013 diversity visa lottery, trying to win a US green card in the latest US diversity visa lottery. Last year a record 15 million applicants entered the DV-2012 diversity visa lottery, also popularly known as the green card lottery. This is almost a 50 percent drop in DV-Lottery applicants and thus, increases the chances of winning a green card dramatically for the remaining 8 million green card lottery applicants.

Next year, it will no longer be free to enter the green card lottery

The number of people entering the green card lottery is expected to fall dramatically in coming years. This is because the US Senate recently passed a new measure to charge a fee of 30 USD for entering the diversity visa lottery, starting with the DV-2015 green card lottery drawing. This fee will be used to pay for extending federal benefits to disabled refugees living within the US the fee would help offset the cost of the program and avoid adding to the US budget deficit.

Bangladesh was the reason for this huge drop in DV-lottery applications

The large drop in entries this year can be attributed to the fact that Bangladeshis, were not eligible to participate in the diversity visa lottery, see the green card lottery requirements. The South Asian nation of Bangladesh, that for many years submitted the most applicants to the DV-Lottery, is no longer classified as a low immigration country to the US and people born in Bangladesh are no longer permitted to enter the diversity visa lottery. Last year, Bangladesh accounted for 7.6 million entries out of the record 15 million in total, i.e. half of all applicants were from Bangladesh.

The diversity visa lottery is an immigration program that offers a quick path to permanent U.S. residence for 55,000 people each year who are selected randomly by the U.S. government from “underrepresented countries,“ which have been less represented in employment and family-based preference categories in the United States of America. Earlier this year, a computer glitch that selected 80% of the winners from the applicants that submitted their application the first two days the lottery was open, forced the government cancel the DV-2012 result and redo the previous lottery drawing, after 22,000 people were incorrectly notified that they had won. Read the article: DV-2012 Green Card Lottery Result Canceled. for more details.

The three countries that submitted the most entries for the DV-2013 green card lottery were Nigeria, with 1.36 million; Ghana, with 909,000; and Ukraine, with 853,000. Africa is now the source of most entries after people born in Bangladesh, no longer are eligible to enter the Diversity Visa Lottery.

The DV-2013 green card lottery will be drawn in late March 2012 and the applicants can check if they won a green card online, starting May 1, 2012. The winners will receive a letter (winning notification) by regular US postal mail between June 1 and July 31, 2012.

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Return to USA Diversity Lottery’s immigration news page to read more immigration news.

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Take the test to see if you qualify. If you do, apply for the DV-2014 Green Card Lottery here on the Official USA Diversity Lottery site and your dreams may soon come true. 55,000 Green Cards available in the green card lottery each year. Take the DV2014 test NOW