DATE=11-1-2002

TYPE=Special English Feature

NUMBER=7-24263

TITLE=SPECIAL ENGLISH AMERICAN MOSAIC #894 Visa Lottery

BYLINE=George Grow

TELEPHONE=619-2585

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Shelley Gollust

CONTENT=

HOST:

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Nigeria. Patrick Anyanwu asks about America's visa lottery program.

Its official name is the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Each year, it offers people around the world the legal right to work and live permanently in the United States.

The State Department's National Visa Center supervises the program. This year, fifty-thousand people have a chance to win a permit known as an immigrant visa. It also is called a green card.

To be considered, you must have completed high school. Or you must have two years of recent work experience in a job that requires at least two years of training or experience.

Also, you or your husband or wife must be from a country permitted to take part in the visa lottery. The program is open only to people born in countries that have low rates of immigration to the United States.

The visa lottery is not offered to people born in countries that have sent more than fifty-thousand immigrants to the United States during the past five years. These include Britain and its territories except Northern Ireland, Canada, mainland China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Other countries whose people may not take part are India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam. Again, people born in these countries may not take part in the visa lottery program this year.

The winners of the visa lottery are chosen by a computer program. They are informed by mail. Every one chosen is given a chance to request the right to work and live permanently in the United States. The winners also are permitted to bring their husband or wife and any unmarried children under the age of twenty-one.

It does not cost any money to enter the diversity visa lottery program. However, the winners must pay for the visa and other expenses. The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is open for a one-month period during October. Last year, the National Visa Center accepted visa requests from more than six-million-two-hundred-thousand people. This year, the visa requests must be received in the United States by November sixth. For more information, use a computer search engine and type the words visa lottery v-i-s-a l-o-t-t-e-r-y. You can also talk with someone at the United States embassy or diplomatic office in your country.