Posted: 10/05/2005

Diversity Visa Entry to DV-2007 Opens on Oct.5,2005. The Department of State will only accept completed Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Forms submitted electronically at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period beginning at 12:00 pm EST (GMT-5) on October 5, 200 5 and ending at 12:00 pm EST (GMT-5) on December 4, 2005.

All entries by an applicant will be disqualified if more than ONE entry for the applicant is received, regardless of who submitted the entry. Applicants may prepare and submit their own entries, or have someone submit the entry for them.

Successfully registered entries will result in the display of a confirmation screen containing the applicant?s name, date of birth, country of chargeability, and a date/time stamp. The applicant may print this confirmation screen for his/her records using the print function of their web browser.

Paper entries will not be accepted.

The entry will be disqualified if all required photos are not submitted. Recent photographs of the applicant and his/her spouse and each child under 21 years of age, including all natural children as well as all legally-adopted and stepchildren (except a child who is already a U.S. citizen or a Legal Permanent Resident), even if a spouse or child no longer resides with the applicant or is not intended to immigrate under the DV program, must be submitted electronically with the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form. Group or family photos will not be accepted; there must be a separate photo for each family member.

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 instructions for the 2007 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program are available at http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html

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.