The United States of America has commenced the registration process for the Diversity Visa (DV) Program for the fiscal year 2025 with applications accepted till November 7, 2023.
However, Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, remains on the list of countries ineligible to apply for the Diversity Visa Program. This also applies to 17 other countries, which have been excluded for the past couple of years.
The aim of the DV program is to offer a special chance for individuals from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
For the FY2025 program, individuals from countries who have sent more than 50,000 of their nationals to the United States in the past five years are ineligible to apply.
According to a statement from the US Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria, Nigerians were no longer eligible for the Diversity Visa Lottery but for those born outside of Nigeria or have parents born outside of Nigeria. In other words, those who were born in Nigeria to Nigerian parents are not eligible.
LEADERSHIP reports that the US DV Program is a yearly lottery system that offers individuals from countries with limited immigration rates to the United States the chance to secure a Green Card.
Annually, the US State Department allocates 55,000 diversity visas (DVs) divided among six geographic regions of the world.
Besides Nigeria, the other 17 ineligible countries are Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including mainland and Hong Kong), Colombia, and Dominican Republic.
Others include El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
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