Understanding Green Card Lottery Rules and Citizenship Pathways

October 2014

Published by the Law Offices of Alena Shautsova, 2908A Emmons Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11235

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Two hands gently holding a globe depicting Earth, showing continents and oceans.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Watch Our New Immigration Videos:

Inadmissibility Issues Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTUPwG339Ys 

And

How to Overcome a Citizenship denial https://youtu.be/xR3qLjPF-5M?si=cGt27WQKA5tMNjfo

Green Card Lottery Rules and Pitfalls: Time to Play!

Author: Green Card Attorney Alena Shautsova

Diversity Visa lottery or green card lottery as some call it, is a program that allows to choose candidates for the permanent residency in the US from a pool of certain countries. The lucky persons will be able to apply for an immigrant visa and move the US with the whole family ( spouses and children under 21). Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides for a class of immigrants known as ‘‘diversity immigrants,’’ from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. For fiscal year 2016, 50,000 diversity visas (DVs) will be available. There is no cost to register for the DV Program. For DV–2016, natives of 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 (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.

To be eligible to participate in the lottery a person must:

Be born in the qualified country; or the person’s spouse has to be born in a qualified country or parents of the person were born in the qualified country (certain restrictions apply);

And

Possess a high school diploma or its equivalent; equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of formal elementary and secondary education;

Or have two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform.

Entries for the DV–2016 DV program must be submitted electronically at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT–4), Wednesday, October 1, 2014, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT–5), Monday, November 3, 2014.

As a part of the DV lottery an applicant must submit photos for him/her and all family members. The photos must be current. Sometimes people are using a middle man, a company that uses applicant’s information submitted once, and each year the company resubmits the application. Sometimes, the application that was first submitted to the company five years ago “wins” the lottery. However, often, at the stage of the immigrant interview the applicants is devastated to learn that because his/her child’s photo was not updated from several years ago, the applicant and the entire family would be disqualified…

Another common pitfall is when an applicant does not enter all his/her children. All family members who exist at the time of the application must be listed on the DV form, otherwise, the applicant will be disqualified, even if the deficient entry was due to a mistake.

Finally, not only those who are outside the US may submit DV lottery entries. Those in the US can do it as well! Moreover, submission of the DV lottery does not affect chances for non-immigrant visa or status.

Citizenship Through Military Service for Beneficiaries of DACA

Author: New York Citizenship attorney Alena Shautsova

The law allows permanent residents to receive citizenship after a person has been in “green card holder” status for 3 or 5 years depending on how the person acquired the residency: through marriage with the USC or some other way.

Usually, a person has to become a permanent resident first, otherwise he/she cannot apply for naturalization.

However, the law provides a very narrow exception to this general rule: citizenship through military service. If allowed to participate in the program, the person can bypass the “green card” process and receive citizenship via expedited way.

Please see: http://www.shautsova.com/law-publications/us-government-citizenship-enlist-us-military.html#.VC4B5haOpVI

For the first time, the program — known as Military Accessions in the National Interest, or MAVNI — will be open to immigrants who has never had a visa if they came to the U.S. with their parents before age 16. More specifically, they must be approved under a 2012 Obama administration policy known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, or DACA.

The program is capped to 1500 persons per year.

To request an info package visit: https://my.goarmy.com/info/form/GetBrcFormRedirectByUrl.do?url=/info/mavni/

Success Story: Citizenship Application is Granted

Client V called our office asking if she would qualify for citizenship as she was in permanent resident status for three years already. She was worried because by that time she was divorced from her husband. She called other offices before, and she was told that she would have to wait for all 5 years before she could submit her application for naturalization. However, the attorneys that she called missed an important fact from her story: client V was a beneficiary of self- petition and adjustment of status as a victim of abusive treatment by her US citizen husband. Usually, if a person receives permanent resident status as a result of a marriage to a US citizen, he/she can apply for naturalization 90 days before the third anniversary of his/her green card status. However, if a person divorces the spouse before that term, than he/she must wait for five years to apply for citizenship.

However, certain individuals, beneficiaries of approved I-360 self-petitions and I-751 waivers based on abuse, who were or are still married to abusive US citizens, even if the spouses do not live together anymore, qualify for citizenship the same way as couples in a vital marital union.

The same is true for those who were granted VAWA cancellation of removal were the applicant was the intended spouse of a US citizen.

Needless to say, that even when we explained this exception to V, she was still nervous and requested an attorney to accompany her to the citizenship interview: by then she has received conflicting information from too many sources, and just wanted to make sure that the process would go smoothly.

The interview went well, of course, and shortly V was scheduled for her oath ceremony…