Quote Originally Posted by chaika View Post
Hanna, the Green Card lottery doesn't work that way - it's not open-ended. There are 55,000 permanent resident visas each year. The government specifies a number of allowed immigrants from each country (not the same number, and the number is 0 for some countries), then the "winners" will get to immigrate if they fall within the allowed number. Diversity Immigrant Visa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interesting - I got curious and looked it up. Funny I never, ever heard of anyone using this lottery and it turns out you know several. According to Wikipedia, the chance of winning are about 1.5 % for anyone entering the lottery in Europe. I agree that it is much better odds than winning the Euromillions...

If I ever want to live in the USA without being tied into an employment contract (or marriage.....!) I'd definitely try it. A friend of mine went through a lot of hassle to get hers - among other things, she could hardly leave the USA at all, for something like 8 years. Only a few very brief holidays. And she couldn't change jobs, practically, because employers did not want the hassle of having to sponsor her residency.

Anyway, now we know the reason why the couple needs advise!

I can't offer any since I am neither Russian, nor American. But wait, I too moved to another country and had opportunities that might not have been open otherwise.... Hard work, posessing sought-after skills.. and having a bit of luck helped me.

Good luck to them anyway, and hope they find what they are looking for.....