THE US Embassy has announced its online registration for the Diversity Visa Lottery 2016 Program or Green Card Lottery in Suva on Thursday.
The annual Diversity Visa program is administered by the US Department of State.
US Embassy staff member Snehal Morris says over the past years between five and seven thousand people in Fiji applied for the Green Card lottery each year.
She said other Pacific Island countries were also part of this program.
“We received roughly 5100 entries from Fiji last year and about 1000 from other countries in the Pacific that we cover Tonga, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia,” Ms Morris said.
She said the program did not change much from year to year.
“The newest changes are strategies we have implemented to ensure the integrity of the program, such as the online DV Entrant Status check.
“Also, some countries may qualify or not qualify for different program years if their immigration numbers change drastically but there was no change like that this year.”
Ms Morris said Fiji had the highest number of applicants who actually applied for the visa program.
“In Fiji we get roughly five to seven thousand entries each year and we select about 600 to 1100 for further processing.”
From all the applicants, she said, about 50,000 permanent resident visas would be given out only to those who met the requirements.
Those who are interested can go to the Diversity Visa Program Instructions on the embassy website.
Applications will close on November 4.
