August 28, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Saani 18,1423

LOS ANGELES, Aug 27: The US State Department on Monday announced the mail-in period for 2004 green card Diversity Lottery Program.

It said the application for Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2004) will be accepted from Oct 7 till Nov 6 this year.

The United States of America makes available 55,000 permanent resident visas (Green Cards) through the Green Card Lottery Program each year.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is not going to become a part of the DV-2004 programme, because it is already sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States every year.

Several other countries, including India and China, are also not part of the programme.

However, the good news is if any person, say from Pakistan, or any other country’s citizen who is born in a country that qualifies to participate in the DV-2004, is eligible to participate in the lottery.

For example, if someone was born in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, can now participate in the lottery, although he may hold Pakistani citizenship.