RegionAll DV Chargeability Areas Except
Those Listed Separately		 
AFRICACURRENTExcept:  Egypt  42,000
ASIACURRENTExcept:  Nepal  13,500
EUROPECURRENT 
NORTH AMERICA (BAHAMAS) CURRENT 
OCEANIACURRENT 
SOUTH AMERICA,
and the CARIBBEAN		CURRENT

It’s amazing how the world has changed in the last month. The Global pandemic has already affected so many aspects of our lives, and of course, has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands. Awful, truly awful.

The pandemic has also had impacts on the Green Card lottery process for DV2020. We were already seeing time as a factor in whether people would get a chance or not. And then interviews were cancelled in March, April and May. Some embassies are starting to reschedule some of those interviews

Now as you can see, almost every case number has been made current (the exceptions being in Egypt and Nepal). That means ANY case number can be interviewed, but of course this will be affected by the status of the embassies in each country, and the effect of the new executive order. It is certain that there is not enough time to conduct all the interviews needed, so by making every region current they have at least given cases the best chance possible. Actual cases interviewed will depend on whether people had submitted the required documents, and then embassy capacity.

This is also very good news for cases wanting to adjust status in the USA as those people can now submit their I-485 packages.

For Nepal and Egypt, I don’t know whether we will see an increase in their numbers in the following months. I suspect we will, but I cannot be certain.

It remains to be seen how KCC handle scheduling during the new Executive order. It is possible that they schedule and even conduct interviews during the ban, but perhaps place cases on AP until the ban is lifted. That would be ideal. Of course there is a possibility that the ban is extended, and in that case they would hopefully have time to issue the visas before the September 30 deadline. The deadline itself cannot be moved.

Those that are current, and have forms processed early enough, they can expect their 2NL in about 1 to 2  weeks from now. This is the same every month. VB from the 8th to the 15th of each month (although more recently it has been published a few days later – around the 17th/18th), and 2NLs in the second half of the month. For the last few months there have been 2NLs sent in two main batches, some early (around the 15th to 20th) and then some in the later part of the month. I would expect the 2NLs to have all been sent by the end of this month. The end of the month really means THE END OF THE MONTH. Please don’t waste my time later this month asking about 2NLs. Please. They can be sent right up until the last day of the month.

To those new to looking at VBs, let me explain what the “except” XXX country means – and you can also read this post on how to read the visa bulletin.

Processing is spread out over the full year. You can see the progress of the two previous years in this post about basic questions.  However, some countries have a high number of selectees and those selectees are concentrated in the lower case numbers. For various reasons, mainly to do with embassy capacity, KCC slow down certain countries as compared to the region. So – in Africa, any case with a case number shown as under the new number can be interviewed but for cases from Egypt, that number is lower. That isn’t a big problem, it just “slows down” those countries a little more than the rest of the region. Since selectees from those countries all have lower case numbers, this slowing down does not present any risk. It does not (at this point) mean they won’t allow all selectees an interview from those countries.

To understand why some countries get lower case numbers, read this article about the lottery draw process.