Results of the 2020 Diversity Visa Program, popularly known as the Green Card Lottery, will be available online starting today, May 7th, 2019.
The results are for individuals who participated in the lottery during the open registration period last year, between October 30, 2018 and November 6, 2018.
Starting today, entrants will be able to confirm if they won by entering their confirmation number and personal information.
The US State Department will then conduct background checks and interviews on winners before granting them permanent residency visas/green cards.
The DV-2020 lottery registration period began on October 3rd, 2018 and ended on November 6th, 2018.
The US State Department will begin procession visas and conducting interviews for the eventual winners starting in October, 2019, with those who pass the interviews, background checks and other qualifications such as high school education and/or work experience being granted permanent resident visas.
The Diversity Visa program, which is administered by the State Department, makes 50,000 permanent resident visas available annually to nationals of countries with low immigration rates to the United States over the previous five years.
Kenya is one of the countries whose nationals qualified to participate in the DV-2020 lottery.
A total of 5,263 Kenyan nationals were granted permanent resident status (green cards) in the first three quarters of 2018, newly released data from the United States Department of Homeland Security indicates.
The number includes 2,934 individuals already living in the United States who adjusted their status and 2,329 new arrivals, and comprises all classes of admission including diversity visas/green card lottery winners, immediate relatives of US citizens, family-sponsored preferences, employment-based preferences, and asylees.
6,957 and 6,274 Kenyans were granted permanent resident status in 2017 and 2016 respectively by the US Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS).
In 2018, nationals from 17 countries were ineligible to participate in the program for having a large number of immigrants in the US.
These included Bangladesh, India, China, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, and Nigeria.
The next registration period (DV-2021) is expected to run between October and November, 2019.