My last article I introduced the U.S. State Department’s annual diversity visa (“green card” ) lottery. It represents a relatively fast and easy path to permanent residence in the USA, provided that the prospective immigrant qualifies.
One problem is that many people who want to enter America are living in countries that already have large numbers of immigrants present in the United States, and are therefore ineligible for the lottery. Another issue is that many entrants prefer or need to use third party assistance to help them prepare their lottery registration.
So why use a visa lottery service?
- CONVENIENCE. One benefit of using a service is the convenience of registering any time of the year without worrying about missed registration deadlines. That is, if entrants cannot register within the open registration period then they may want to use a service.
- FOLLOW UP LEGAL SERVICES. Services that have contacts with a U.S. immigration attorney can offer legal help to lottery winners. Legal assistance is not an absolute requirement but can be extremely useful depending on their particular circumstances.
- POOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS. If English language skills are weak, then a lottery service can help. The service should either correct mistakes or return the registration and tell you where to make the correction.
- LACK OF COMPUTER ACCESS. Entrants must have access to a digital camera to take pictures, or a scanner to digitize photographs at the correct resolution. Those without computer technology available may wish to send in a paper application and standard photograph to a lottery service so they can scan their pictures and enter their information electronically.
- UNRELIABLE POSTAL SERVICE. People with slow or unreliable postal service in their home country should use a lottery service. For winners, if notification letter does not arrive in a timely manner, winners will lose critical response time.
- UNKNOWN FUTURE RESIDENCE. Others may not know where they will be living if selected and need use the return address of a trusted third party that will not change.
Although many people, particularly those from Western countries enter themselves there is one website, myGreencard.com, that reviews and ranks green card lottery sites according to their own rating criteria. They look at services offered, fees, and other factors to help people find an ethical lottery service. (Disclaimer: this is a site I help run but I’m not trying to sell you anything).
MyGreencard also publishes their guidelines used to rate services, and identifies the top websites and those to avoid. Most importantly, with links to a new discussion forum users can discuss services provided by their lottery service provider and register public complaints.
We will continue discussing the lottery off and on in coming months as we get closer to the opening registration date.
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