Solomon Islanders who are interested in migrating to the United States of America can register for the 2010 Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery Program which opened from October 2 and will close on December 1, 2008.

Each year the U.S. government makes 50,000 permanent residence visas (“green cards”) available through the Diversity Immigrant Visa program. Visa applicants are selected through a computer-generated, random lottery, which is open to persons from eligible countries who meet certain education or work experience requirements.

Despite other Pacific Island countries utilising the opportunity, Solomon Islands did not submit any application for the 2009 lottery. For 2009, Australia was awarded 590 visas, Niue (11), PNG (15), Fiji (760), Samoa (20), Kiribati (2), Tonga (129), FSM (2), Tuvalu (1), Nauru (1), Vanuatu (1), and New Zealand (269 visas).

Interested people are encouraged to go direct to the website www.dvlottery.state.gov because it is free of charge and belong to the US Government.

Winners will be selected electronically and they will begin mailing out notification packets to winners between May and July, 2009.

Winners are not notified by e-mail, so if an applicant receive an e-mail informing him/her of the outcome, that's not a legitimate e-mail and it's certainly not from the US Department of State.

Source: US Department of State