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Immigrant Visas

Persons wishing to reside permanently in the United States will need an immigrant visa. The most common categories of Immigrant Visas (IV) are:

  • Family-based (certain relatives of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents)
  • Employment-based
  • Diversity Visas for winners of the DV Lottery

 

Immediate Relatives

A US citizen can file an IV petition for the following relatives: Husband, wife, married and unmarried children. A US citizen who is 21 or older can also file an IV petition for the following relatives: Parents, brothers, and sisters. US citizen grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws and cousins cannot sponsor a relative for immigration. For additional information, see the Visa Office website or the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website.

Consular Officers are authorized to approve I-130 petitions filed by American Citizens who have been legally resident in Sri Lanka for the last six months.   Americans that are not residents in Sri Lanka must file their petition at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office nearest to their place of residence in the United States.  Petitions filed in Sri Lanka that are not clearly approvable will be forwarded to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in New Delhi, India for adjudication.

Immediate relative beneficiaries are scheduled for interviews as soon as possible after the Embassy receives the approved petition from the National Visa Center. The wait for an interview may take up to four to six weeks.

Family-Based Immigrant Visas

A US citizen can file an IV petition for the following relatives: Husband, wife, children, son, and daughters. A US citizen who is 21 or older can also file a IV petition for the following relatives: Parents, brothers, and sisters. US citizen grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws and cousins cannot sponsor a relative for immigration. See IV Priority Dates for visa waiting periods. For additional information, see Visa Office website or the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website.

 

Employment-Based Immigrant Visas

The sponsoring employer in the U.S. must file a petition. The petitioner must demonstrate that there are no workers in the U.S. to perform the work, and that the applicant has the necessary training and experience to perform.

 

 

Diversity Visa Program

The congressionally mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State to provide for a new class of immigrants known as diversity immigrants (DV immigrants). Up to 50,000 permanent resident visas are given out annually to persons from countries with low immigration rates to the United States.

The annual DV program makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Applicants for Diversity Visas are chosen by a computer-generated random lottery drawing. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years. For more information and to sign up for our DV email list, please click on Diversity Visas on the left side of this screen.

Visa interviews are scheduled as soon as possible after the Embassy receives the approved petition from the National Visa Center. The wait for an interview may take four to six weeks.

 

For more information regarding any of the immigrant visa categories, please consult the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website at www.uscis.gov . See IV Priority Dates for visa waiting periods.