(Reuters) - More than 22,000 people were erroneously told they were eligible for a special U.S. visa program because of a computer error in an annual lottery and the drawing must be redone, a U.S. official said on Friday.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the United States regretted any inconvenience or disappointment caused by the mistake and that the results of the new drawing were expected to be available around July 15.
Under the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, the U.S. government makes available some 50,000 visas each year drawn from a random selection to people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The official said that because of a computer programing error, 90 percent of the winners were selected from the first two days of applications rather than from the entire batch of applications over the 30-day registration period.
Some 19.6 million people had applied for the visas, which give them the opportunity to immigrate without having a family member or an employer sponsor them – the typical route to a U.S. “green card” denoting permanent residency.
The U.S. government developed the malfunctioning computer program, the official said. It has been fixed and no one will be disciplined for the error, said a second official.
IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING THE 2012 DIVERSITY LOTTERY PROGRAM
We regret to inform you that, due to a computer programming problem, the results of the 2012 Diversity Lottery that were previously posted on this website have been voided. They were not valid and were posted in error. The results were not valid because they did not represent a fair, random selection of entrants, as required by U.S. law.
If you checked this website during the first week in May and found a notice that you had been selected for further processing or a notice that you had not been selected, that notice has been rescinded and is no longer valid.
A new selection process will be conducted based on the original entries for the 2012 program.
If you submitted a qualified entry from October 5, 2010 to November 3, 2010, your entry remains with us. It will be included in the new selection lottery. Your confirmation number to check results on this website is still valid.
We expect the results of the new selection process to be available on this website on or about July 15, 2011.
We regret any inconvenience this might have caused.
Click here to view a message from David T. Donahue, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services:
The Department of State will run a new selection using all the qualified entries (ones received between October 5, 2010 and November 3, 2010) it received for the 2012 program.
The new results should be available on this website on or about July 15, 2011.
Человек же не выдумал. Он и даёт официальную информацию из посольства США в Туркменистане. Не проверенную информацию дают в 2-х других топиках, касающихся проверки заявки на сайте и неработоспособности сайта.
fa-remnant не виноват в том, что кому-то его информация не понравилась…
