IMMIGRANT VISAS

Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (NOT APPLICABLE TO INDIA)

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). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.  India is NOT among the countries whose citizens qualify for Diversity Visas.

The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas, however, are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.

For any questions pertaining to the DV program please contact Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) public inquiry office: 

KCC Public Inquiry E-mail    kccdv@state.gov
KCC Public Inquiry Phone (606) 526-7500
KCC Public Inquiry Fax  (606) 526-7501 

For more information on DV Program click here