Why Nigeria is excluded from U.S. visa lottery, by envoy

AMID conflicting reports on the reasons for United
States of America’s disqualification of Nigeria from the
2015 Diversity Visa (DV) programme for immigrants,
the embassy has said that the decision was based on
laid-down laws guiding the programme.
Also, an analysis of entries showed that the U.S.
embassy in Nigeria has never received any same-sex
marriage application for the DV lottery programme as
Nigerian laws do not recognise such union.
Consul-General, U.S. Consulate in Lagos, Jeffrey Hawkins
told journalists via a tele-conference yesterday that,
“the DV programme is no longer appropriate for
Nigeria as Nigerians are now immigrating on their own
(to the U.S.) without the DV status.”
He stressed that as long as countries like Nigeria exceed
its immigration quota of 50,000 immigrants that it is
unlikely to be re-considered for the DV programme.
Hawkins explained that in the DV-2015, natives of the
19 identified countries are not eligible to apply in the
electronically-based registration programme, which
starts October 1st, 2013 and ends November 2nd same
year because the countries sent more than 50,000
immigrants to the U.S. in the previous five years.
The envoy said, “Nigeria has graduated. The
immigration we have from Nigeria has been strong, we
have an incredible diverse and successful Nigerian-
American community in the U.S.”
He said about a million and half Nigerians are
legitimately in the U.S. and that 9,200 visas were issued
to Nigerians as of this year with about 6,500 of this
visas issued in the normal visa category.
Other countries not eligible for the DV-2015 include
Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born),
Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Haiti, India and Jamaica.
Other countries affected include Mexico, Pakistan, Peru,
Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except
Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories and
Vietnam.