A total of 7,040 Ghanaians have won the 2004 edition of the US Diversity Immigration Visa Lottery (DV-2004), an increase of 707 over the figure the 2003 figure of 6,333.
Ghana’s figure comes close to Nigeria’s 7,145 which topped the list of countries whose citizens participated in the lottery.
According to a release announcing the results, approximately 111,000 applicants have been registered and notified. The winners may now make an application for an immigration visa.
However speaking to GRi on the basis of anonymity, a handful of winners in the 2003 draw claimed that they were rejected visas on very flimsy excuses.
The Immigration and Nationality Act makes available 50,000 persons out of winners of the diversity lottery permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
Applicants registered for the DV-2004 programme were selected at random from approximately 7.3 million qualified entries but an additional 2.9 million applications were either received outside of the mail-in period or were disqualified for failing to properly follow directions.
When the results for 2003 were released and eventually the winners attended interviews for their visas the outcome sparked off varied reactions- some very harsh while others were blunt without apologies.
A number of people who called at the Chronicle offices in Accra accused the United States Embassy of denying many who legitimately win visa lotteries from entering America.
The public affairs section of the embassy in a swift reaction denied all the allegations.
Their major concerns among others centred on the payment of assorted fees, bearing expensive medical tests and also the often-flimsy excuses for rejecting an applicant a visa.
The whopping sums they lose are breaking marriages and forcing some victims to lead wretched lives, it was gathered.
A teacher Kofi Atakorah who failed to mention offhand the name of the pupil who placed last in his last terminal examination, was denied the visa, it was reported.
An accountant who failed to answer to the satisfaction of an interview panel a question on the profession was also reportedly denied a visa.
For soliciting the assistance of someone to fill some forms relevant to the visa acquisition, others were denied the visa.
"What they at times do is they ask you to copy from the original papers you have filed with them, just to test whether you wrote them yourself.
And if, because you are unable to write well, you make somebody help you to fill the form, they disqualify you," was a complaint from one of them.
Others included disqualifications on the grounds of omitting the minutest detail such as a dot in a signature and that was Dinah Duah’s plight.
A father and the whole family missed the visa because, "the child did not resemble the father" and spent ?1.7 million each for HIV/AIDS test.
Additionally they paid ?120,000 to obtain a police report and another ?3,918,000 each at the interview stage at the embassy and the fees have to be paid –including babies still breast-feeding.
In all, an average family size of five that applies for a visa lottery ends up paying about ?30 million for various services, it was gathered.
"If you raised a loan to pay all these because you trusted in the lawful lottery, you won and at the last minute were rejected on some dubious fault, you would feel hopeless and helpless," another said.
But the public affairs section of the US embassy denied the allegation that it deliberately subjects some Ghanaians who have won the DV lottery to frustrations, in a bid to refuse them entry into America.
Susan Parker-Burns, the information officer, explained that the embassy considers high education and specialized occupations as well as experience as the two determinant factors for the issuance of entry visas to a DV lottery winner.
She further stated that the embassy thoroughly studies all the documents of various winners some of which, she noted, turn out to be forged by the supposed winners.
She explained that it is the exposition of such fraudulent deals that results in refusal of entry visas which some applicants do not understand and for which reason they accuse the embassy of deliberate frustration.
Parker-Burns suggested that no physical features were used to refuse any applicant, "except proven by a DNA test."
She maintained that the embassy puts premium on the visa lottery in Ghana, as the country ranks quite high among the world's stakers.
She revealed that over 5,000 people won the lottery last year, while about 6,333 people applied for this year's DV lottery.
On specialized occupations, she said, such applicants are trained in America, in order to meet the American labour standard requirements.
Following is the text of the State Department announcement:
(begin text)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
June 24, 2003
Media Note
DIVERSITY VISA LOTTERY 2004 (DV-2004) RESULTS
The Kentucky Consular Center in Williamsburg, Kentucky, has registered and notified the winners of the DV-2004 diversity lottery. The diversity lottery was conducted under the terms of section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available 50,000/(1) permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Approximately 111,000 applicants have been registered and notified and may now make an application for an immigrant visa. Since it is likely that some of the first 50,000/(1) persons registered will not pursue their cases to visa issuance, this larger figure should insure that all DV-2004 numbers will be used during fiscal year 2004 (October 1, 2003 until September 30, 2004).
Applicants registered for the DV-2004 program were selected at random from the approximately 7.3 million qualified entries received during the one-month application period that ran from Noon on October 7, 2002 through Noon on November 6, 2002. An additional 2.9 million applications were either received outside of the mail-in period or were disqualified for failing to properly follow directions. The visas have been apportioned among six geographic regions, with a maximum of seven percent available to persons born in any single country. During the visa interview, principal applicants must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience within the past five years. Those selected will need to act on their immigrant visa applications quickly. Applicants should follow the instructions in their notification letter and must fully complete the information requested.
Registrants living legally in the United States who wish to apply for adjustment of their status must contact the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services for information on the requirements and procedures. Once the total 50,000/(1) visa numbers have been used, the program for fiscal year 2004 will end. Selected applicants who do not receive visas by September 30, 2004, will derive no further benefit from their DV-2004 registration. Similarly, spouses and children accompanying or following to join DV-2004 principal applicants are only entitled to derivative diversity visa status until September 30, 2004.
Only participants in the DV-2004 program who were selected for further processing have been notified. Those who have not received notification were not selected. They may try for the upcoming DV-2005 lottery if they wish. The dates for the mail-in period for the DV-2005 lottery program will be widely publicized during August 2003.
1/The Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act (NCARA) passed by Congress in November 1997 stipulated that up to 5,000 of the 55,000 annually-allocated diversity visas be made available for use under the NCARA program. The reduction of the limit of available visas to 50,000 began with DV-2000.
The following is the statistical breakdown by foreign-state chargeability of those registered for the DV-2004 program:
AFRICA ASIA AFGHANISTAN 46 IRAQ 174 MONGOLIA 65 EUROPE ALBANIA 3,071 GERMANY 1,227 NORTHERN IRELAND 51 ALGERIA 1,285 ERITREA 373 NAMIBIA 10
ANGOLA 17 ETHIOPIA 6,353 NIGER 35
BENIN 209 GABON 14 NIGERIA 7,145
BOTSWANA 8 GAMBIA, THE 65 RWANDA 87
BURKINA FASO 34 GHANA 7,040 SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE 0
BURUNDI 27 GUINEA 22 SENEGAL 269
CAMEROON 1,531 GUINEA-BISSAU 6 SEYCHELLES 1
CAPE VERDE 4 KENYA 5,721 SIERRA LEONE 2,149
CENTRAL AFRICAN REP. 10 LESOTHO 0 SOMALIA 566
CHAD 41 LIBERIA 1,570 SOUTH AFRICA 413
COMOROS 0 LIBYA 24 SUDAN 1,183
CONGO 31 MADAGASCAR 27 SWAZILAND 2
CONGO, DEMOCRATIC MALAWI 32 TANZANIA 329
REPUBLIC OF THE 455 MALI 51 TOGO 2,819
COTE D'IVOIRE 268 MAURITANIA 25 TUNISIA 115
DJIBOUTI 24 MAURITIUS 44 UGANDA 351
EGYPT 4,189 MOROCCO 5,069 ZAMBIA 124
EQUATORIAL GUINEA 1 MOZAMBIQUE 5 ZIMBABWE 168
BAHRAIN 15 ISRAEL 465 NEPAL 4,259
BANGLADESH 5,126 JAPAN 1,291 OMAN 3
BHUTAN 9 JORDAN 125 QATAR 8
BRUNEI 7 NORTH KOREA 4 SAUDI ARABIA 54
BURMA 906 KUWAIT 45 SINGAPORE 137
CAMBODIA 237 LAOS 10 SRI LANKA 1,418
HONG KONG SPECIAL LEBANON 105 SYRIA 64
ADMIN. REGION 293 MALAYSIA 222 TAIWAN 1,833
INDONESIA 844 MALDIVES 0 THAILAND 297
IRAN 1,431 YEMEN 106
ANDORRA 1 GREECE 66 NORWAY 19
ARMENIA 836 HUNGARY 139 POLAND 5,467
AUSTRIA 64 ICELAND 17 PORTUGAL 46
AZERBAIJAN 338 IRELAND 305 Macau 0
BELARUS 966 ITALY 165 ROMANIA 1,845
BELGIUM 46 KAZAKHSTAN 451 RUSSIA 2,600
BOSNIA/HERZEGOVINA 128 KYRGYZSTAN 206 SAN MARINO 0
BULGARIA 3,482 LATVIA 172 SERBIA & MONTENEGRO 448
CROATIA 73 LIECHTENSTEIN 1 SLOVAKIA 392
CYPRUS 11 LITHUANIA 2,059 SLOVENIA 8
CZECH REPUBLIC 172 LUXEMBOURG 4 SPAIN 62
DENMARK 39 MACEDONIA, FORMER SWEDEN 82
ESTONIA 71 YUGOSLAV REP. 166 SWITZERLAND 183
FINLAND 44 MALTA 10 TAJIKISTAN 105
FRANCE 313 MOLDOVA 574 TURKEY 2,343
French Guiana 1 MONACO 1 TURKMENISTAN 95
French Polynesia 3 NETHERLANDS 94 UKRAINE 4,494
Guadeloupe 5 Netherlands UZBEKISTAN 1,819
Reunion 2 Antilles 6 VATICAN CITY 0
Aruba 1 GEORGIA 479
NORTH AMERICA
BAHAMAS, THE 12
OCEANIA
AUSTRALIA 362 NAURU 0 SOLOMON ISLANDS 2
FIJI 738 NEW ZEALAND 155 TONGA 43 KIRIBATI 0
Cook Islands 0 TUVALU 0 MARSHALL ISLANDS 0 PALAU 0
VANUATU 1
MICRONESIA, FEDERATED PAPUA NEW GUINEA 3
STATES OF 0 SAMOA 8
SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CARIBBEAN
ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 6 DOMINICA 12 PERU 1,298
ARGENTINA 194 ECUADOR 746 SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS 2
BARBADOS 3 GRENADA 6 SAINT LUCIA 5 BELIZE 4
G GUATEMALA 26 SAINT VINCENT AND BOLIVIA 62
GUYANA 22 THE GRENADINES 5 BRAZIL 287
HONDURAS 25 SURINAME 1 CHILE 23 NICARAGUA 27
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 71 COSTA RICA 12 PANAMA 13
URUGUAY 41 CUBA 674 PARAGUAY 31 VENEZUELA 194
Natives of the following countries were not eligible to participate in DV-2004: Canada, China (mainland-born, excluding Hong Kong S.A.R., and Taiwan), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam
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