Immigrant Visas
General Information
To enter the United States to reside permanently, you need an immigrant visa, even if you do not plan to seek employment. To obtain an immigrant visa, you must be sponsored by either:
- a U.S. employer (employment-based immigrant visas), or
- a close family relative who is an American citizen or a legal permanent resident (family-based immigrant visas).
- a limited number of immigrant visas are also available through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program - The green card lottery.
There are 55,000 immigrant visas made available each year to natives
of countries that have had recently low immigration to the United
States.
Suriname is one of the qualifying
countries.
The applicants for Diversity
Visas are picked randomly from the pool of people who register during a
specified period. For more information click here:
Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
Once a person enters the U.S. on an immigrant visa, he or she is issued a so-called “green card” by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which identifies the person as a legal permanent resident. To maintain status as a legal permanent resident, a person generally cannot be outside the U.S. for more than one year at a time.
Click here for more information about immigrant visas.