Jamaica, Haiti barred from diversity visa

WASHINGTON (CMC):

The Unied States (US) Department of State says Jamaicans and Haitian are among nationals not eligible to apply for the 2015 Diversity Visa Programme (DV-2015).

In making the announcement on Wednesday, the department also pointed out that natives of the Dominican Republic are also barred from the programme as, along with Jamaica and Haiti, more than 50,000 immigrants came to the United States in the last five years.

The US Congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme 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).

According to the State Department, Section 203(c) of the INA provides a maximum of 55,000 diversity visas each fiscal year to be made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

selectees

It said the annual DV programme makes visas available to persons meeting the "simple but strict, eligibility requirements," adding that a computer-generated, random drawing chooses selectees for diversity visas.

The visas 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 nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years, as in the case of Jamaica and Haiti.

No single country may receive more than seven per cent of the available diversity visas in any one year.

eligible countries

Other countries not eligible to apply to the programme are: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.