Nigerians have been barred from participating in the United States Diversity visa (DV) lottery in 2022 because over 50,000 Nigerians have immigrated to the US in the last five years.
A statement published by the US State Department on its website yesterday, stated categorically that Nigerians are not eligible for the 2022 visa lottery which entitles winners to lawful permanent residency status in the United States of America, popularly known as green card.
The statement did not explain how the US government calculated the number of Nigerians alleged to have immigrated to the US in the last five years; neither did it say whether family re-union by family members of Nigerian-born US citizens were factored in the calculation.
The 19-page document titled: “Instructions for the 2022 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2022)” stated that: “In Africa, natives of Nigeria are not eligible for this year’s Diversity Visa Program.” However, natives from other African countries are eligible to apply, but “persons born in the areas administered prior to June 1967 by Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt are chargeable, respectively, to Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Persons born in the Gaza Strip are chargeable to Egypt; persons born in the West Bank are chargeable to Jordan; persons born in the Golan Heights are chargeable to Syria.”
“Applicants who are selected in the program (selectees) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a diversity visa. The Department of State determines selectees through a randomized computer drawing. The Department of State distributes diversity visas among six geographic regions, and no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.
“For DV-2022, persons born in the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. “Persons born in Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible,” the document read in part.
