Born Outside Home Country - Country of Eligibility for the DV Program

[ladanow 0]

Dears

My Friend "Egyptian Nationality" has been born in Saudi Arabia, His parents were legally resident there that time, But now they are not resident there anymore.

Can he make the country of eligibility to be "Egypt" instead of "Saudi Arabia"

Actually Egypt is better due to higher number of selected immigrant, but can he do it ?

According to my understanding, he can't choose Egypt, Can anyone confirm

From official Docs

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Your country of eligibility will normally be the same as your country of birth. However, you may

choose your country of eligibility as the country of birth of your spouse, or the country of birth of either of

your parents if you were born in a country in which neither parent was born and in which the parents were not

resident at the time of your birth. These are the only three ways to select your country of chargeability.

Edited November 2, 2014 by ladanow

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

Be very careful saying egypt is "better" because more people are selected - more people enter too so it doesn't mean his chances are better. If 100000 people from Egypt enter and they choose 5000, that doesn't mean he has a better chance than if 300 from Saudi enter and they choose 200...

And Egypt is also subject to a lower cutoff than other African countries because of so many entrants.

If his parents were resident in Saudi at the time no he can't choose egypt, but in any case Saudi is eligible so he doesn't need to. Alternate charging is when you were born in an ineligible country.

Edited November 2, 2014 by SusieQQQ

[ladanow 0]

Dear SusieQQQ

Thanks for the confirmation.

However for your point, i searched for the statistics of past years, and i found the the percentage (accepted people/applied people) in egypt is higher than Saudi arabia.

This is my point, however his only option is to apply via Saudi Arabia

Thanks dude

[SusieQQQ 11,584]

Dear SusieQQQ

Thanks for the confirmation.

However for your point, i searched for the statistics of past years, and i found the the percentage (accepted people/applied people) in egypt is higher than Saudi arabia.

This is my point, however his only option is to apply via Saudi Arabia

Thanks dude

Doesn't change the fact that the egypt cutoff works heavily against Egyptian applicants. Just being selectd doesn't guarantee you get an interview... Look at the Sept 2014 visa bulletin for the cut off - 32k vs overall africa at 81k. But anyway irrelevant as you say.

Edit: just a point of contention, I didn't bother looking at all past years but for FY2012 (latest they have entry numbers for) chances of being drawn in Egypt were 0.59%, in Saudi Arabia 0.81%. Not sure why you think Egypt is better but remember that the number of selectees must be compared to the total entrants as it includes derivatives.

Edited November 2, 2014 by SusieQQQ