A citizenship candidate holds a flag during the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization ceremony at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, U.S., September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The US Diversity Visa, popularly known as the Green Card Lottery, excludes nationals of a number of countries each year based on their recent levels of immigration to the US.
For the DV-2026 programme, natives of 20 countries were not eligible to participate, according to the US Department of State.
The Diversity Visa programme makes immigrant visas available to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
Under US law, countries from which more than 50,000 natives immigrated to the US over the previous five years are generally excluded from the programme.
