At the time of writing it is a few days after the DV2020 results were made available. People have noticed that I am suggesting people don’t rush to submit their DS260. I would even say that the majority of cases should NOT be submitting their DS260 – and I want to explain that advice.

As I have mentioned in a couple of other articles, we are seeing some VERY high case numbers in all regions, and that could mean this is a very over selected year. There are 50,000 visas available. It is “normal” to select more than that as winners (because some cases won’t continue the process), but a good number would be less than 90k or 100k at most. In some previous years we have seen KCC select 125k and even 140k. If they have done that again this year it will be INEVITABLE that some cases will not become current (i.e. will not get an interview).

So – we will see selectee numbers (by country and region) in one of the next 3 Visa Bulletins. There is one to be released this week, then about the same time in the coming months. So – one of those VBs will give us an important number – the selectee number. From that we can determine whether this is a normal selection year with a lot more holes than usual (because of some new procedure). OR this is an over selected year.

Until then people should hold back their DS260 unless their case number is very low. Why? Well several reasons.

  1. Submitting the DS260 early does not speed up your case. You cannot be interviewed before your case number is ready. Not under any circumstances.
  2. Most people haven’t bothered to read and understand the procedure so they will rush and later realize they made mistakes, some of which will cause problems.
  3. Submitting a DS260 is a serious thing. It is an immigrant application, and once that has been submitted you forever have to declare you have made an application to emigrate to the USA. If you do not get a GC through the lottery will will have declared “immigrant intent” which can make future NON immigrant visa applications harder to get approved. Not impossible, but harder.

So – unless your number is LOW, I would recommend you wait a couple of months at least. It won’t harm you by waiting, this is not first come first served, and it could save you some pain later.

By “low” I mean the following by region.

EU and AF region Under 15,000.

AS region under 5000

SA and OC under 500.

Numbers higher than that will probably not even be current (eligible for interview) in 2019. They would get interviews in 2020 only. So why rush???