History-DV Program.
The famous immigrant visa was first introduced in the 1940s as the “Alien Registration Receipt Card.” The first of these credit card-sized IDs bore green writing and a greenish photo. Thus, the expression “Green Card” was coined and quickly became common. Meanwhile, the Green Card has changed its color several times. For a while, it had even been pink, since 1999 a light green shade is used again. More than 10 million foreigners are currently living in the USA with a Green Card.
Since 1994 the DV program has already been executed three times in February, once in November, and several times in October. The responsible institution changed in 2000. The formerly appointed National Visa Center in Portsmouth had to hand the processing over to the Kentucky Consular Center, which since then has been in charge of the receipt and evaluation of the applications.
In the first year, it was still possible to enter several applications per person into the DV lottery. This led to a few persons applying hundreds of times and, thus, most probably receiving a Green Card. The effects were a completely overloaded institution and injustices in the distribution, as better-off persons could file more applications. Since then, each person is only entitled to submit one application per year and has to trust Fortuna.
The Diversity Visa (DV) or DV Lottery Program is based on §201 to 204 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) determines the eligible countries and application rules based on a calculation laid down in law. These rules can change from year to year.
