It’s my first time hearing about the lottery ticket. Will check it out and apply if I meet the requirements.
The requirements to enter the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery are quite minimal. You must enter via the official U.S. State Department Web site, not some scammy imposter site. (Every year there are some phishing sites that pop up.) The general qualification is that you were born in a country from which there aren’t a large number of immigrants, with certain exceptions. If you were born in Singapore, that works since Singapore is not a major source of immigration into the United States. You also need at least a secondary school education or a couple years of skilled work experience, so the education/skills hurdle is quite minimal — most people from Singapore easily clear it. And, if you get a lottery “ticket” and are invited to apply for an immigrant visa, you’ll need to pass a criminal background check, pass a basic medical exam (mostly to check that you don’t have communicable diseases and have had all U.S. CDC specified vaccinations), pay the fees, and demonstrate sufficient initial financial means (“startup capital”) to get established well enough in the U.S. without being a significant risk of becoming a public burden.
The lottery odds are long, but it’s free to try every year. Millions apply, about 100,000 “tickets” are handed out each year, and the first ~55,000 to clear all visa application steps get in. Your odds are very good if you get a ticket and simply push hard to get all the visa application steps done quickly. And because of how the random draw is conducted individuals born in Singapore should have a pretty decent chance. It’s not one big random draw but rather lots of smaller ones, to try to get a very diverse applicant pool — the whole point of the program.
The immigrant visa process doesn’t happen overnight. This lottery next month is called “DV-2022” because this quota of 55,000 visas is earmarked for 2022. So the earliest you could enter if everything goes your way is January 1, 2022, as I understand it. Nonetheless, if you win a ticket, push hard and as fast as allowed, with due care of course.
U.S. Permanent Residents are eligible for U.S. federal student loans, notably including the direct, subsidized student loans. “Subsidized” means that the interest is zero and payments are deferred while you are attending a qualified educational institution, making satisfactory progress, and for 6 months thereafter. These loans are subject to a “FAFSA” financial need test.
Of course U.S. PRs can live, work, study, and retire indefinitely in the United States. You do need to take some care to be physically present in the United States to maintain the status. Long-term green card holders remain U.S. tax residents unless and until they file a formal expatriation tax return with the IRS, even if they have lost or ended U.S. permanent residence in immigration terms. U.S. tax residence and U.S. permanent residence are separate matters, in other words.
Good luck!
