Nigerians are barred from entering for the 2023 United States’ Diversity Immigrant Visa programme better known as the green card lottery.
The programme allows people from all over the world to stand the chance of obtaining the United States’ Green Card, officially known as Permanent Resident Card.
Every year, tens of thousands of individuals apply for the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery.
In the instructions for the 2023 DV programme, some countries, including Nigeria, are excluded from the list of countries whose citizens are eligible to apply because “more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years.”
“For DV-2023, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years,” the instruction reads. “Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.”
Nigeria is the only African country whose citizens are ineligible to apply for the visa program.
According to census statistics, Nigerians’ total population in the U.S. is 382,820. The data also shows that between 2015 and 2020 alone, Nigerians’ population rose by 116,847.
The visa lottery program, which is administered by the Department of State, was created with the passing into law of the 1990 Immigration Act.
