December 15, 2006
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) announced that over 6.4 million entries for the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery were received during the two-month electronic registration period, from October 4, 2006, through December 3, 2006. Taking dependents into account, there are more than 10 million participants in the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery.
Most of the applications were from Africa and Asia with 41 percent of the total from Africa, 38 percent from Asia. The largest number of applicants came from Bangladesh (more than 1.7 million) followed by Nigeria and Ukraine. The number of winning entries by country will be available after the random lottery process is conducted next year.
The electronic registration process continues to increase the Department’s ability to screen against duplicate and other fraudulent entries. Anti-fraud technology using facial recognition and data mining will be used to eliminate duplicate cases.
There have been several attempts to defraud Diversity Visa Lottery entrants. Lottery entrants selected as winners in the Diversity Visa random drawing are notified only by the Department of State’s Kentucky Consular Center. No other organization or company is authorized by the Department of State to contact winning entrants.
Notification of winning entries will be sent to the winning entrants by mail only between April and July 2007 and will provide further instructions, including information on fees connected with immigration to the United States.
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