The registration period for the 2013 Diversity Visa Lottery (2013) program was between October 4, 2011, Tuesday noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and November 5, 2011, Saturday noon, EDT. Entrants in the DV lottery program may check their status starting May 1, 2012 on the E-DV website.
The last few days of the registration period saw a surge in the number of persons registering for DV-2013. However, this year the number of registrations has gone down considerably when compared to last year. There were only 8 million applicants this year, nearly half of last years count of 15 million registrations.
The drop in registrations has been attributed to the fact that this year Bangladesh was not an eligible country. A majority of registrations in the previous years has been from Bangladeshis. Only countries that are considered low-immigration countries are eligible to participate in the Diversity Lottery program.
The Diversity Visa Lottery program, run by the U.S. government issues 55,000 visas to registrants from countries that have low-immigration rates. Of these 55,000 visas, 5,000 visas have been allocated for use under NACARA since DV-1999. Winners are randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries and the winners are invited to apply for a green card to come and live and work permanently in the United States.
Participants are required to check on the E-DV website for the status of their applications. Checking the website is the only means to find out whether a person has won the lottery or not. Winners will not receive any sort of written or email communication regarding the results. They may receive an email reminding them to check their case status, but they will not receive any information regarding whether they have won the lottery or not. This is an effort to put an end to the many fraudulent activities conducted by various parties as a means of collecting money from unsuspecting participants. The Department of State regularly warns the public to be aware of such fraudulent emails and notifications.
The Diversity Visa program is one of the quickest ways to get a green card, which means that there will be more participants for the program. This program is a free program. All applications are submitted online. With Bangladesh out of the list of eligible countries, the number of participants has gone down by nearly half this year. The number is expected to drop further in the coming years as the Senate has proposed to charge an entrance fee for the lottery program.
Nigeria, Ghana and Ukraine have had the largest number of registrants this year. All registrants can begin checking their status beginning May 1, 2012.