Green Card lottery

The residence permit can also win a special online lottery (diversification lottery, DV), which is held each year by the U.S. government. One of the purposes of the lottery - to encourage immigration to the United States people of the countries from which immigrants to the United States are too often absent. More than 6.4 million people have applied to participate in a lottery in 2008, 0.9 million higher (16.4%). Given the family members of applicants, the total number of participants reached 10 million. The bulk of them - the people of developing countries in Africa (41%) and Asia (38%), 19% from Europe, 2% from South America. In the first place out of Bangladesh with 1.7 million applicants, followed by Nigeria with 684 thousand. Natives of countries with a large representation of immigrants, namely Brazil, mainland China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Poland, South Korea, Canada and the United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its colonies, Vietnam, the lottery did not take part because the number of immigrants from these countries over the past 5 years more than 50 thousand people. Russia was again allowed to participate in a lottery in 2008 (DV-2010). In 2011, the registration period lasted 31 days - from October 4 to November 5, 2011