green card through DV lottery
 

What are my chances of winning a green card through the DV lottery program.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

I know it's a low percentage.

And since they select 100,000 applicants with only 50,000 diversity visas actually available each year, there's no guarantee even if you are picked that it will result in a greencard.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

There's usually between 9 million and 12 million applicants every year. And they only select 125,000 of them. Plus, they only issue 50,000. So. Simple math

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

Zero for me. I don't qualify.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

Even if you win, you have to have a 245i exemption to adjust your status. Even then if you have a final order or don't have daca, it's a bit of a risk to "out" yourself. I went ahead and applied this time but if I do win, I'm not confident I can adjust my status. Not that I'll win of course...I had applied for this since 1995 up until about 2011 before giving up.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

You know if Daca does get rescinded then this could be probably my Plan B Keep entering in the DV lottery every year until i win it.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

Simple math? Is the lottery really at random or do they look at merit stuff? Im usure of how the DV lottery works.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

We heard about it first in 1990 but back then it was so hard to gather information so we had to ask family friends to ask around about it to get the instructions and it was a mess. I printed the first application on a dot matrix printer. I don't remember if we had to send a photo back then but over the years, the rules became more and more clear and then it went online.

I was too young to apply myself but remember filling out the application for my parents and we pretty much filled it out every year until the mid-2000's and I myself did it when I was 18 and up. I only stopped doing it for 2 years when I found out I couldn't adjust my status but then found that that I could possibly be 245i exempt so I did it again this past year. So anyway, for 25 years and 60 or so applications and not a single one of us won.

On the other hand, I used to work with this horrible human being who won just as his brother's paperwork was current so he'd walk around bragging about how he was getting a green card twice and rubbing it in so I guess you don't win if you don't play.

Most of the other people I've heard of who won were just random people working in a field somewhere in a 3rd world country and got the golden ticket. Probably Trump voters by now.

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

It's totally random, all they require in that you have to be the citizen of a list of countries, and maybe a high school diploma. It's all luck after that.

When I worked at a hotel, I did have 2 coworkers who won the DV lottery. One of them was Russian and the other Nigerian, so 2 completely different parts of the world

Re: green card through DV lottery
 

Winrate if I recall correctly is about 1 in 200, so .5%. They draw 100,000, for 50,000 eligible visas since a lot of people just get cold feet and back out when they win.

That however all veers back to the admissibility reasons, to adjust after EWI/Overstay you'd need 245(i), or you'd need I-601A (and therefore a USC/LPR Spouse/Parent(s)).

USCIS actually has a special procedure for dealing with I-601As for DV Lottery winners. You can apply as soon as you are announced a winner due to the time sensitivity in that you have to get the visa issued before the end of the fiscal year (on or before September 30th), and before the numbers are exhausted.

They actually don't require you to be a citizen of the given country, they require you to either:
1. Be born in an eligible country.
2. Have a spouse born in an eligible country.
3. Be a citizen of an eligible country born elsewhere where you have never resided (e.g. your parents are Polish but you were born during transit through UK).

Both spouses can also file independently, as long as one was born in eligible country.