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July 2017 Visa Bulletin

S

Starchest

New Member
Next months Visa Bulletin is out.

As we all know all regions are current.

Except:
Egypt: 30,600
Nepal: 7,075
Uzbekistan: 13,300

DV 2018 Visa Lottery Results:

115,968 winners.


Being SA00024XX I just want to take this moment to try and get sense on how in the world you can win just to simply not get it at the end. Really soul crushing when there is a high number of winners.

How do you interpret my 2400 number taking into account there are 5000 winners from SA?
 
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uc
 
By the way, the visa bulletin shows the rare event of a "retrogression". A case number like EU13305 would have been current in July, but is cut off in August if charged to Uzbekistan.
 
Starchest said:
Next months Visa Bulletin is out.

As we all know all regions are current.

Except:
Egypt: 30,600
Nepal: 7,075
Uzbekistan: 13,300

DV 2018 Visa Lottery Results:

115,968 winners.


Being SA00024XX I just want to take this moment to try and get sense on how in the world you can win just to simply not get it at the end. Really soul crushing when there is a high number of winners.

How do you interpret my 2400 number taking into account there are 5000 winners from SA?
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will be writing some thoughts about this tomorrow, but for now we can see that all regions have more selectees than the last two years, and we will not see all (or perhaps even any) regions go current. SA, OC, EU have higher number of selectees than DV2015 (when all regions ended with cutoffs in place). AS and AF regions have less selectees than DV2015, but possibly still too many.

OC and SA will not go current. That is obvious.
EU, AF and AS are all at risk of having a cutoff - but I need to do some numbers. I'm a bit surprised that the highest AF case numbers I have heard of don't really match the published numbers. The other region numbers all confirm my suspected selectee counts based on the case numbers I have heard.

@Starchest - your number is very risky.
 
Hi Everyone.

What about SA0000193x?? Any chance or i should just erase this number from my life and continue with my old plans here in the US? @Britsimon

Thanks
 
Britsimon said:
Thanks. I will be writing some thoughts about this tomorrow, but for now we can see that all regions have more selectees than the last two years, and we will not see all (or perhaps even any) regions go current. SA, OC, EU have higher number of selectees than DV2015 (when all regions ended with cutoffs in place). AS and AF regions have less selectees than DV2015, but possibly still too many.

OC and SA will not go current. That is obvious.
EU, AF and AS are all at risk of having a cutoff - but I need to do some numbers. I'm a bit surprised that the highest AF case numbers I have heard of don't really match the published numbers. The other region numbers all confirm my suspected selectee counts based on the case numbers I have heard.

@Starchest - your number is very risky.
Click to expand...


Thank you very much for your insight. I agree. Correct me if I'm wrong but we've seen it go to 2500, but also cut as early as 1750 for this ammount of selectees for SA. So nothing more to do than your famous quote "wait and see".
 
I am not as acknowledgeable as Britsimon and others and I'm still learning about the whole process (So don't take me too seriously),...but I did some math and I think the highest CN for Africa should be around 55000,...and IF no new (and unpredictable) variables mess up the process (although with Trump and the overselection in EU and AS there may have some surprises for AF),....there is slight chance (maybe 20-30%) the region will go current,...and if things don't go as predicted and there is a cut off,...it may be somewhere between 45XXX and 50XXX. Anyway, what is 100% sure is that the border between the safe zone and the range of turbulence is AF43000.

Any input?
 
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Britsimon said:
Some rough analysis of the DV2018 selectee numbers here:
http://britsimonsays.com/dv2018-selectee-numbers-published/
Click to expand...

Thanks britsimon. I've been waiting for you entry. I see my number is just on the border between safe and "some" risk (Although I've been considering it "not quite safe" for quite some time). So this gonna be a long year for me. Otherwise I am quite surprised 2 million of ghanaians applied for DV2018 (agents aside, maybe there is some truth about the "nigerian theory"). I also see you thought about the Trump effect. Nothing to worry about stricter background checks if you have nothing to hide (and I prefer it this way),....but this can delay visa issuance and some High Case Number selectees with interviews in August may even miss the end of the fiscal year if the additional checks are not that quick.
 
saabe said:
Thanks britsimon. I've been waiting for you entry. I see my number is just on the border between safe and "some" risk (Although I've been considering it "not quite safe" for quite some time). So this gonna be a long year for me. Otherwise I am quite surprised 2 million of ghanaians applied for DV2018 (agents aside, maybe there is some truth about the "nigerian theory"). I also see you thought about the Trump effect. Nothing to worry about stricter background checks if you have nothing to hide (and I prefer it this way),....but this can delay visa issuance and some High Case Number selectees with interviews in August may even miss the end of the fiscal year if the additional checks are not that quick.
Click to expand...

What's the "Nigerian theory"?
The number for Ghana doesn't look out of line with past years & increasing trends over time e.g. 2013-2015 (so still 2 years between latest in here and the new numbers) https://travel.state.gov/content/da...cs/DVApplicantEntrantsbyCountry 2013-2015.pdf
 
SusieQQQ said:
What's the "Nigerian theory"?
The number for Ghana doesn't look out of line with past years & increasing trends over time e.g. 2013-2015 (so still 2 years between latest in here and the new numbers) https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DVStatistics/DVApplicantEntrantsbyCountry 2013-2015.pdf
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the Ghana entries - but I'm sure it is well over 2 million people (inc derivatives). That's a lot in a country of 27 million people, and the derivative rate reveals a lot of "single" people (though clearly not single).

The total entries of 24 million means a 70 percent increase in derivatives in just 3 years. That is nuts!
 
SusieQQQ said:
What's the "Nigerian theory"?
The number for Ghana doesn't look out of line with past years & increasing trends over time e.g. 2013-2015 (so still 2 years between latest in here and the new numbers) https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DVStatistics/DVApplicantEntrantsbyCountry 2013-2015.pdf
Click to expand...


2 million entries is too much for a country of 27 million people.

80% of refusal is not very normal,...even for a poor country like Ghana (poorer and much more corrupt countries in the region are not denied that much,...and Ghana is actually quite OK for a west-african country).

Ghana along with Liberia (4.5 million) and Sierra Leone (7.5), are the only English-speaking countries of the region Nigeria aside,...and they all have ridiculously high number of entries.


Maybe (just a theory), some Nigerians (An overpopulated country of 182 million where fraud is an industry) have been applying as Ghanaians, Liberians and Sierra Leoneans, to increase their chance since well before 2015,...and things accelerated since 2015 (with Nigeria out). And maybe NOT,..there are other more "innocent" circumstances that explain the high number of entries from Ghana and the other 2 english-speaking countries of the region (maybe language?). It's not even a theory, just a hypothesis, but there is something fishy in that part of Africa.
 
saabe said:
2 million entries is too much for a country of 27 million people.

80% of refusal is not very normal,...even for a poor country like Ghana (poorer and much more corrupt countries in the region are not denied that much,...and Ghana is actually quite OK for a west-african country).

Ghana along with Liberia (4.5 million) and Sierra Leone (7.5), are the only English-speaking countries of the region Nigeria aside,...and they all have ridiculously high number of entries.


Maybe (just a theory), some Nigerians (An overpopulated country of 182 million where fraud is an industry) have been applying as Ghanaians, Liberians and Sierra Leoneans, to increase their chance since well before 2015,...and things accelerated since 2015 (with Nigeria out). And maybe NOT,..there are other more "innocent" circumstances that explain the high number of entries from Ghana and the other 2 english-speaking countries of the region (maybe language?). It's not even a theory, just a hypothesis, but there is something fishy in that part of Africa.
Click to expand...

Actually Ghana is not the only country to have refusal rates like that. Nigeria and Bangladesh when they were in it, as well as certain smaller countries have very high refusal rates. High rates of fraud are linked to high refusal rates. This is exacerbated in countries like Ghana by the "agents" who perpetrate fraud themselves, enter people without their knowledge by using Facebook photos etc (this we have seen reported here and this is one facet I would accept as a reason for the unusually high entries as well as refusals should the poor person be convinced to continue with the application, as there is always incorrect info on the eDVs in these), people who think they can increase chances by entering more than once, again what I'd accept as a valid reason for the high entries, and by agents who simply advise people wrongly for example telling them they have a higher chance leaving off their spouse from their entries

The Nigerian theory doesn't make sense to me because any such entry falls at the first hurdle of having your birth certificate match your entry. What would be the point?

And of course these are not the only African countries to have high entries. Egypt, Ethiopia, DRC etc all routinely have selectee numbers that imply they were capped. Similar for a number of east European countries. One thing a lot of these countries do have in common is poor economies, sometimes also with repressive governments, and quite clear push factors as to why people would love a chance at moving to a rich first world country.

.
 
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Hi all,
Simon (and all of the sages) - I was curious, where do you get the allocation percentages from? You say that EU and Asia has seen a small decrease this year, and that Africa a slight increase. However, Eu seems to have quite a surge in the selectee count compared to last year, (and Africa a moderate one), while Asia's count has practically remained the same as last year. If I understand the numbers correctly, that might imply that Asian high case numbers (like myself... ;) 113xx) are relatively "safer" than European high case numbers, since Asia is only in a slightly worse position then the one it was in 2016/2017, years in which it became current, compared to EU, which has much more selctees this year but less visas to give? Or am I reading the numbers wrong?
I also wonder whether the administration predicts a higher refusal/AP rate this year, given the employment of the "stricter scrutiny" policy, particularly in Asia and Africa, which could account for the higher number of selectees (but would make the huge increase in the EU count even stranger, no?).
 
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