What is the Diversity Visa Program?
5 Things to Know

1| What is the Diversity Visa Program?

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program provides individuals from countries with relatively lower levels of recent immigration to the United States an opportunity to apply for a visa and permanent residency (a green card).

About 50,000 diversity visas are typically issued each year. In FY 2020, the last full year before the pandemic, more than 8 million registrations were submitted for principal applicants; including spouses and children, more than 11 million people applied for the program. Because of the substantial interest in the program, registered applicants are selected using a randomized lottery and are invited to formally apply for the visa if abroad, or to file an adjustment of status application if residing in the U.S.

The Diversity Visa Program promotes and protects diversity in the U.S. immigration system. This not only extends opportunity to aspiring immigrants around the globe, it also welcomes more diverse talents and contributions to the U.S. economy and communities. For many aspiring immigrants, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue the American Dream.

3| How does the Diversity Visa Program benefit America?

The Diversity Visa Program preserves equitable opportunity in the U.S. immigration system and contributes to the rich cultural diversity of the United States. This diversity is a fundamental American value, reflected in the food, music, languages, and perspectives that form the fabric of our communities and our nation. Diversity in our classrooms and workplaces fosters a sense of belonging, promotes fairness by reducing bias, and drives individual and team success.

And research has shown that diversity is good for the economy, associated with increases in wages and productivity for U.S.-born workers. Diversity visa recipients tend to be well-educated and contribute significantly to the U.S. workforce, as much as immigrants who arrive through other programs. Analysis of survey data from the early 2000s shows that diversity visa recipients generally had higher educational attainment than other immigrants and native-born Americans, as well as higher English proficiency than other immigrant groups.

Other analysis of this same data set shows that diversity visa recipients had lower levels of unemployment than most other immigrants, and that they had similar wages, and better wage growth after arriving as well.

4| How does the Diversity Visa Program work?

Aspiring immigrants can apply for the Diversity Visa Program if they were born in qualifying “low-admission states” from which fewer than 50,000 immigrants originated in the previous five years. The State Department publishes an updated list annually. Individuals generally may also be eligible to apply if their parents or spouse is from a qualifying country.

Diversity visa applicants must have completed a high school education or its equivalent, or have two years of work experience within the previous five years in a job that requires at least two years of training.

Each year, 50,000 diversity visas are generally available. Per-country caps (similar to caps on employment- and family-based visas) further limit the issuance of diversity visas, so that no more than 7% can be issued to individuals from a single country each year.

Because of the high volume of applications, a randomized lottery is conducted to select enough applicants to meet the numerical cap. Once an individual is selected to apply, they must pass rigorous background checks, submit evidence verifying their education and/or work experience, complete an interview with a government officer, and be generally admissible under immigration law. Individuals selected in the lottery can also apply to have their spouses and children accompany them.

All individuals seeking a diversity visa must receive their visas and enter the country (or adjust status from within the U.S.) before the end of the fiscal year in which they are approved; if they do not, they may lose their eligibility.

5| Why did Congress create the Diversity Visa Program?

Congress created the Diversity Visa Program as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT90) to promote diversity and extend opportunity to individuals from countries and regions underrepresented in recent immigration admissions.

The framework for the modern immigration system was established by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which implemented a “preference system” to prioritize aspiring immigrants with family ties and employment opportunities in the U.S. already. This legislation significantly shaped the demographic makeup of immigration in the decades that followed.

In the late 1980s, Congress experimented with a diversity-based immigration program, in part to address perceived barriers for immigrants from certain countries (primarily Ireland) as a result of the 1965 Act. The Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986 set aside 5,000 visas for “natives of foreign states the immigration of whose natives to the United States was adversely affected by the enactment” of the 1965 Act. This policy was later extended through 1990, and the cap was raised to 15,000 visas, of which Irish immigrants received roughly 40%.

The Diversity Visa Program was in many ways a continuation of this policy, and like the preference system before it, the Diversity Visa Program opened the door to new groups of immigrants from different regions around the world, particularly Africa and Eastern Europe.