Addis Ababa, May 12, 2011: U.S. Embassy Press release.
On May 2, 2011 the U.S. Department of State announced that applicants for the 2012 Diversity Visa (DV) Program may now check their application status online. Applicants must enter the confirmation number from their DV application at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ to determine whether or not their application has been selected for further processing. Applicants will not receive an email or a letter providing this information. Being selected does not guarantee a visa interview or issuance of a Diversity Visa. Entrants must also receive an appointment from the U.S. Department of State for a visa interview and have their application approved by an American Consular Officer.
The U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa notes that Diversity Visa applicants must meet certain strict requirements to receive a visa. The DV program requires that applicants have a certain level of educational or professional experience, including either 12 years of basic education or at least two years of full-time experience in a qualifying occupation. Under U.S. law, purely vocational education cannot be considered for DV qualification purposes in any country. Due to recent changes in Ethiopia’s Technical and Vocational (TVET) program, the U.S. Embassy cannot accept new TVET program certificates documenting a level of skill, as these programs are entirely vocational and no longer include a basic educational component. Applicants may still qualify for the DV with proof of graduation from a previous TVET 10+3 program by providing three years of transcripts that include basic educational courses. The Embassy’s Consular Section urges selected DV applicants to review their educational and professional experience, and consider whether they meet eligibility requirements.
The DV program makes visas available to persons meeting eligibility requirements. Anyone from a qualifying country may enter, and a computer-generated, random lottery drawing selects Diversity Visa applications to process. Visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration to the United States, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available Diversity Visas in any one year.
In 2011, the Department of State received more than 12 million entries for the DV lottery program. Approximately 100,000 entrants were selected worldwide, including 5,200 Ethiopians, to further pursue a Diversity Visa. In 2010, as in years past, the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa issued more than 3,000 visas to Ethiopian lottery winners.
For detailed information about entry requirements, along with frequently asked questions about the DV lottery, please see the official DV Website at www.dvlottery.state.gov. For information about the visa process in Ethiopia, please visit the U.S. Embassy’s website at www.ethiopia.usembassy.gov.