If you are about to enter this year’s green card lottery, then you should read this article. By the time this is published you will have one day or less to meet the lottery registration deadline of noon Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4) on Saturday, November 5. Here are some tips and options available for this year's or next year’s visa lottery.
USE A PAID LOTTERY SERVICE. You can use a paid lottery service, if it is not already too late for this year. Using a lottery service is a lot like using a paid tax preparer—it is mainly for the convenience: the convenience entering any time of year; the convenience using printed photos that most services can scan for you in the right format; the convenience of not worrying about ever-changing registration dates, and the convenience of automatic multi-year entries.
One of the reasons to use a service is so you don’t have to hassle with winner’s status checking. Instead, lottery services will check for you to see if you won, and then notify you by email. And the top services also notify you by telephone. Some services also offer paid airfare to the United States and pre-paid attorney consults, although these options come with significantly increased fees that can run into the hundreds of dollars.
Finally, the very best services offer winners support in their native language.USAGC, for example, offers support in Spanish, Arabic, and Russian. The American Dream offers support in German, French, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, and Kisuaheli.
ENTER ON YOUR OWN. Entering the lottery on your own is relatively easy and free. All you need is a digital photo of yourself (and your immediate family). The photos must meet U.S. passport specifications. Then, all you have to do is visit the official government website at: https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ and enter your personal information and photo(s) into online Form DS-5501.
If you don’t speak English, the official site currently has instructions in these 13 foreign languages: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bahasa/Indonesian, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Latvian, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Uzbek.
You will be asked questions including: your family name, birth date, address, educational level, marriage status, country of birth, etc. In general you have to be a high school graduate and born in a visa eligible country to qualify. You can also enter without a secondary school degree if you meet one of the qualifying applications, although most require a college degree. There are many other critical details that matter, mostly covering your particular circumstances if you win.
You can visit a photo validating application so you can check that your photograph(s) meet official U.S. passport photo requirements. I haven’t thoroughly tested it to confirm it can detect all or a portion of the requirements, but it certainly can detect resolution problems, maximum file size limitations, and that your head is within the proper proportions relative to the background. NOTE: the photo checking application on the registration page can detect the difference between a photo that is 600x598 pixels versus one that is the required 600x600 pixels.
The entire registration process takes about 30 minutes (or less), depending on the size of your family. Afterwards you will receive an official confirmation number that looks like this: 20132UPV0LIQOL9D.
Then, beginning May 1, 2012 you can visit the official Electronic Status Check (ESC) website at https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ESC/ to see if your confirmation number is one of the 100,000 winners. If so, you will need to start checking if your ranking number is “current” in the Visa Bulletin every month beginning May, 2012. The Visa Bulletin is available at myGreencard.com’s Downloads page and elsewhere, on or about the 10th of the previous month; i.e. the June Visa Bulletin is available in early May.
USE AN IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY. You can also pay a U.S-licensed immigration attorney to register you for the diversity visa lottery. Using an attorney to enter yourself into the lottery can be overkill unless you win. Then, you have a reliable professional with all your personal data immediately available to work on your behalf.
Unfortunately, if you don’t speak English, few U.S. immigration attorneys can help you in your native language. Although immigration attorneys are usually more expensive than lottery services, many winners will need an attorney anyway due to unique issues with their personal circumstances.
READ OUR BOOK. Whether you enter yourself, use a fee-based lottery service, or contact an immigration attorney before or after you win, our book Win the Green Card Lottery! will help you navigate the complex U.S. immigration process and understand what to expect from your professional (if you use one) and the U.S. government. It is available in PDF format or in paperback for USD $28.50.
The cost (USD $25 until November 5th) represents a tiny percentage of the full cost of winning. But it can save you thousands of dollars in wasted time, money, and effort. Since at least half of the initial 100,000 “winners” will fail to obtain a permanent resident visa due to mistakes (or by choice), this relatively modest investment is a bargain. Now in its eighth edition, Win the Green Card Lottery! is also available in ePubs format on the B&N Nook and Amazon Kindle, including the new Kindle Fire, for only $9.99.
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