US Citizenship

The DV lottery has two eligibility requirements:

1. The entrant must be from an eligible country. You must have been born in an eligible country, or have parents who were born in eligible countries and who were not residents of your country of birth, when you were born. For example, your parents might have lived temporarily in the ineligible country because of their jobs.

Every year, the State Department announces the countries whose natives are ineligible for application. For the DV-2005 lottery, natives of the following countries were not eligible to apply: Canada, China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Applicants should check with the State Department to determine the ineligible countries for future DV lotteries.

2. Entrants must meet an education or training requirement. You will have met the education requirement if you have a high school education or have successfully completed a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education. You will have met the training requirement if you have at least two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform.

Deportation can be avoided

A non-citizen of the United States, including lawful permanent residents (green card holders), can be deported (under current law deportation is called “removal”) for violating the terms of his visa, for committing certain crimes, or for certain types of conduct contrary to the immigration laws, like alien smuggling or using false documents. A person trying to enter the United States can be arrested, denied admission and excluded from the United States as well. However, just because the government claims that a foreigner is excludable or deportable does not mean that he or she is. The foreigner can fight his case in Immigration Court and it can sometimes be terminated because the government’s claim of deportability or excludability cannot be proved. Being a citizen protects a person from being deported or excluded. Sometimes a person is a citizen without being aware of it. If an Immigration Judge is presented evidence that shows that the person is a citizen, removal proceedings will be terminated.