Visas: Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program

DEPARTMENT OF STATE <CFR>22 CFR Part 42</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Public Notice: 12281]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1400-AF76</RIN> <SUBJECT>Visas: Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of State. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of State (“Department”) proposes to amend regulations governing the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (“DV Program”) to improve the integrity and combat fraud in the program. The Department proposes to require petitioners to the DV Program to provide valid, unexpired passport information and a scan of the biographic and signature page uploaded to their electronic entry form, or otherwise indicate that they are exempt from this requirement. Additionally, the Department also proposes to standardize and amend language in 22 CFR part 42, including by adding the word “shall” to simplify guidance for consular officers; ensuring the use of the term “sex” in lieu of “gender” as mandated by Executive Order 14168; and replacing the term “age” in 22 CFR 42.33(h)(1)(i) with the phrase “date of birth” to accurately reflect the information collected and maintained by the Department during the immigrant visa process. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments and related materials must be received on or before midnight Eastern Daylight Time on September 19, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested parties may submit comments, identified by Department docket number DOS-2025-0001 or RIN 1400-AF76, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the website instructions for submitting comments. A summary of this rule is also available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> by searching for RIN 1400-AF76. Comments submitted in a manner other than the one listed above, including via emails or letters sent to Department officials, will not be considered comments on the NPRM, and may not be considered by the Department. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Department of State; telephone: (202) 486-7586; email: <E T="03">VisaRegs@state.gov.</E> <E T="03">Public Participation:</E> The Department invites all interested parties to submit written data, views, comments, and arguments on all aspects of this proposed rule. Comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. Comments that will provide the most assistance to the Department in implementing this change will reference a specific portion of the NPRM, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include information that supports the recommended change. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> If you submit a comment, you must include the RIN 1400-AF76 for this NPRM in the title or body of the comment. Submitted comments will be publicly posted to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Therefore, you may wish to consider limiting the amount of personal information that you provide. The Department may withhold from public viewing information provided in comments that it determines offensive. You should not submit case inquiries or include case numbers in your comment. For additional information, please read the Privacy Act notice available in the footer at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket and to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> referencing Department Docket Number DOS-2025-0001. You may also sign up for email alerts on the online docket to be notified when comments are posted or a final rule is published. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The DV Program is administered by the Department of State. Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. 1101 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> makes diversity visas available to aliens who are “natives” of “low-admission” states, subject to certain numerical limitations. The INA defines “low-admission states” as those with equal to or fewer than 50,000 natives admitted to the United States during the most recent five-year period. INA section 203(c)(1)(B)(ii). Millions of petitioners register annually for the DV Program through an electronic entry form. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Aliens who enter the DV Program are referred to as “petitioners.” Petitioners in the DV Program who are selected are referred to as “selectees” for a Diversity Immigrant Visa. The Department's Electronic Diversity Visa website. <E T="03">https://dvprogram.state.gov/.</E> </FTNT> Under section 204(a)(1)(I)(iii) of the INA, petitions (also referred to as “entries”) for the DV Program must be in the form prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State (“Secretary”) and contain all information and be supported by documentary evidence that the Secretary requires. As provided in Department regulations at 22 CFR 42.33, the entry form collects information on the petitioner's full name; date and place of birth; sex; native country, if different from place of birth; current mailing address; and location of the consular post nearest to their residence, where the application for a diversity immigrant visa (“DV”) should generally be adjudicated if the petitioner is selected and scheduled for an interview through the DV Program. The electronic entry form also collects information about the names, dates, and places of birth of the petitioner's spouse and children. After the close of the DV Program entry period, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> certain petitioners are selected through a randomized computer drawing (“selectees”), and selectees may apply for a DV or, if physically present in the United States and otherwise eligible, may apply to adjust status as a diversity immigrant, <E T="03">see</E> INA section 245(a). Under section 201(e) of the INA, the number of available DVs each year is 55,000. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> To be issued an immigrant visa as a diversity immigrant, individuals must establish their qualifications and eligibility for the visa in accordance with the INA and Department regulations. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  A full description of the Diversity Visa Program, including information about each step in the process, can be found at: <E T="03">https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-submit-entry1.html.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  While section 201(e) of the INA authorizes the allocation of 55,000 diversity visas annually, up to 5,000 of these visas may be set aside for use under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024. <E T="03">See</E> Public Law 105-100, 203(d) (1997) (8 U.S.C. 1151 note); Public Law 118-31, 5104 (2023). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Fraud and Criminal Entities Hijacking the Process</HD> The Department has historically encountered significant numbers of fraudulent entries for the DV Program each year, including entries submitted by third parties, some of them criminal enterprises, on behalf of individuals without their knowledge. Unauthorized third parties will often then contact the unwitting individual, inform them of the opportunity to apply for a DV, and hold the entry information from the petitioner in exchange for payment or to coerce the petitioner to be complicit in certain acts of fraud. This type of fraud is prevalent enough that the Federal Trade Commission addressed it in a 2012 YouTube video about DV fraud. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Diversity Visa Lottery Scams | Federal Trade Commission—YouTube, available at <E T="03">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOnSN8Pbak0.</E> </FTNT> One of the more egregious examples of large-scale third-party fraud occurred in 2012 when Embassy Dhaka (Bangladesh) reported through official channels that one IP address was responsible for more than 634,000 entries. Bangladeshi authorities investigated the facilitators and found computers with thousands of applications, along with fake education documents and staged marriage photos. Similarly, a Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> highlighted Embassy Kyiv's (Ukraine) account of organized fraud rings masquerading as travel agencies taking control of the DV Program in Ukraine. By buying, stealing, or otherwise obtaining from public sources, personal information about Ukrainian citizens, the fraud ring entered these Ukrainian citizens' names in the online DV Program website, often without their permission or awareness. The fraud ring then contacted hundreds of Ukrainian selectees and required them to pay up to $15,000 to obtain the confirmation number. If the selectee could not pay, the fraud ring often insisted that he or she enter into a sham marriage with a person who had expressed interest in immigrating to the United States. In such a case, the “sham spouse” would pay a substantial amount of money to be paired with a DV selectee. This type of fraud continues to be widespread. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  ISP-I-13-45A Department of State, OIG, Inspection of Embassy Kyiv, Ukraine, September 2013. </FTNT> Another form of fraud involves the creation or submission of false documents that the scammer claims will enhance a petitioner's chances of selection or approval. This can include counterfeit educational documents, fake work experience letters, or manipulated photographs as evidence of a marital relationship. In 2023, Embassy Phnom Penh (Cambodia) reported seeing old ID photos that fixers had photoshopped by changing the cloth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 58k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━