To take part in Diversity Visa Program, you will need to meet only two requirements. One is the country requirement and the other one is the requirement related to education or employment.
Before filing an online application to take part in the Green Card lottery, the first thing you need to do is to check the list of DV Lottery eligible countries to make sure that your country of birth is on that list. Unfortunately, if your country of birth is not on that list, you will not be able to participate in the lottery program. Remember that you should not enter the wrong country just to enter the lottery program, as this will get you disqualified.
However, this doesn’t mean that all who were born in Green Card Lottery ineligible countries will not be able to take part in the lottery program. This is where you will need to understand what “country of chargeability” means.
Your country of eligibility need not be your country of birth or the country where you live. Under the provisions of Section 202(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), you are entitled to be “charged” to a country other than the country in which you were born, for immigration purposes.
If you were born in an ineligible country, you need not enter that country as your country of chargeability if either one of the following applies to you.
- Your spouse was born in a Green Card Lottery eligible country. If this is true, you can enter the name of your spouse’s country of birth in your DV lottery entry.
For example, if you were born in Brazil, a Green Card Lottery ineligible country and if your spouse was born in Argentina, a country on the list of eligible countries, you can claim Argentina, where your spouse was born. Your Green Card Lottery application must include details about your spouse and yourself. If that entry is selected, you may get a chance to apply for immigrant visas and go to the U.S. This is possible only if both you and your spouse are eligible to immigrate. In this case, you and your spouse must both enter the U.S. together with diversity visas.
- Your parents were staying in your country of birth temporarily for purposes like tourism, education etc and neither of them was born in that country. If this is true, you can apply for the lottery based on the Green Card Lottery eligible country in which your father or mother was born.
For example, if your country of birth, Brazil is ineligible for the DV Lottery and if your father and mother were both citizens of Argentina, an eligible country when you were born, you can claim your parents’ country of birth and apply for the lottery. You can claim Argentina only if your parents were visiting Brazil at the time of your birth.
If you were born in an ineligible country, you need not enter that country as your country of chargeability if either one of the following applies to you.