2013 Diversity Visa Lottery announced, Begins on October 4, 2011

Addis Ababa:  The Embassy of the United States of America today announced the beginning of the 2013 Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery application season.  Applications for the 2013 DV Program will be accepted from October 4 to November 5, 2011.  Applicants may access the electronic Diversity Visa entry form (E-DV) at dvlottery.state.gov during the registration period.  Paper entries will not be accepted.  Applicants are strongly encouraged not to wait until the last week of the registration period to enter as heavy demand may result in website delays.  No entries will be accepted after noon Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), on November 5, 2011.

The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements.  Every DV lottery entrant must have at least a high school education or its equivalent as defined by local requirements or have two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least three years of training or experience.  Applicants who do not meet the educational or work experience requirements will be disqualified.

A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses selectees for Diversity Visas.  The visas are distributed among six geographic regions globally, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the past five years.  Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year. 
For DV 2011, the Department of State received more than 12 million entries for the DV lottery program.  Of that number some 100,000 entrants were selected worldwide to further pursue a Diversity Visa, of which 55,000 received U.S. Diversity Visas.  For DV 2011, approximately 3,500 visas were issued to qualified Ethiopians through the DV program, the maximum number allowed worldwide.

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).  Beginning in 2005, the Department of State implemented an electronic registration system in order to make the DV process more efficient and secure.  Special technology and other means are used to identify those who commit fraud for the purposes of illegal immigration or those who submit multiple entries.

All entrants for the DV 2013 program will only find out the status of their entry online on the E-DV website Entry Status Check.   The online Entry Status Check will be the ONLY way selectees will be notified of their selection for DV-2013.  The State Department will not be mailing out notification letters, nor will the Department send an email to those selected.

For detailed information about entry requirements, along with frequently asked questions about the DV lottery, please see the instructions for the DV-2013 Diversity Visa lottery on the Department’s Consular Affairs Website at dvlottery.state.gov.  For information about the visa process in Ethiopia, please visit the U.S. Embassy’s website at ethiopia.usembassy.gov.

Source:  ethiopia.usembassy.gov