Am I jeopardizing my F1 visa by doing CP after DV2012 win?

[Concerned_]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I must admit this forum provided me with a broad range of information, however one thing is still grey area for me.
I am pursuing my PhD here and my project is making quite significant head ways. I also have full support from school; and my scholarship pays for everything. The prospects of getting a job in my field are bright after I get the degree and I was planning to get my green card by applying for NIW. Guess what. I won the DV2012 lottery. My number is in 26XXX for EU, so looks like it will become current April-June period if the trend of last three years continues. AOS is out of the question, since my wife and kids are not leaving with me and they can’t come to US right now to do AOS. So consular processing is only one choice for me.
Now onto the main question. If I go for CP and by whatever reason we get denied, what happens to my F1? My guess would be that they cancel it too at the time of interview; they always do that with any other non immigrant visas except B1/B2. In that case it would be problematic to acquire new F1 visa, I believe they will treat you as a person with clear immigrant intent. So what you as an experts can advise me in my case? I do not want to sacrifice all my work which I have already done on my PhD, any experience in this matter is greatly appreciated.

 

[fthnm2005]

I dont think so! Unless you have other reasons that might jeopardize your DV process, I encourage you to go ahead with CP! I have been told for a long time that F1 students are not allowed to seek permanent residence, but that belief is simply misleading.

 

[toyakumar]

I would consider writing to your embassy. I did that and they said that the DV lottery and Student visa are separate things and the DV lottery will not affect my current student visa. They also said the student visa would be cancelled if I were granted an immigrant visa. Although they didn't explicitly say it, I took that to mean that if the immigrant visa isn't granted for any reason, the student visa would be untouched. Something like this may be a matter of policy held by US embassies abroad for continuing F1 students as I have read of another instance (in this forum) where an applicant was told by the consular section of their embassy that a continuing student would be allowed to return to the US if the outcome of the DV process is negative. Again, it's best to contact the embassy in question- my experience has been that they try to help you if you have a clean record, not screw you over by cancelling your visa and making you unable to enter on an F1 if the DV application process hits a glitch.

 

[Concerned_]

I would consider writing to your embassy. I did that and they said that the DV lottery and Student visa are separate things and the DV lottery will not affect my current student visa. They also said the student visa would be cancelled if I were granted an immigrant visa. Although they didn't explicitly say it, I took that to mean that if the immigrant visa isn't granted for any reason, the student visa would be untouched. Something like this may be a matter of policy held by US embassies abroad for continuing F1 students as I have read of another instance (in this forum) where an applicant was told by the consular section of their embassy that a continuing student would be allowed to return to the US if the outcome of the DV process is negative. Again, it's best to contact the embassy in question- my experience has been that they try to help you if you have a clean record, not screw you over by cancelling your visa and making you unable to enter on an F1 if the DV application process hits a glitch.

Thank you toyakumar! This is very valuable information. I will definitely do that. Really it will make sense for them to allow continuing students to finish their degrees.