Diversity-Visa Lottery Application Period Ended
Posted: Saturday, November 12, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Until the other day I hadn’t even heard of the Diversity-Visa Lottery that is run each year by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. It is an immigration program that offers a quick path to permanent U.S. residence for 50,000 people each year. They are selected randomly by the government from countries that send few immigrants to America. Its purpose, as the name implies, is to give America a more diverse ethnic and cultural flavor. A drawing is held each May.
The State Department is concerned that entries in the lottery will drop even further next year because the Senate recently passed a measure to charge a fee for entering the electronic drawing. Senator Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) got approval for a bill to give federal benefits to non-citizen refugees living in the United States. An attachment to the bill that approved a new $30 fee to enter the diversity-lottery was overlooked and slipped through. The House of Representatives is expected to pass the same measure. Schumer says the fee will help offset the $36 million the program costs taxpayers. Many are complaining that the new fees make the diversity lottery discriminatory against poor people in the foreign countries and should be eliminated.
To qualify for a visa through the Diversity Visa Program, a person must have a high school diploma or equivalent, or two years of recent work experience that required two years of training or experience. The visas are available to residents of countries with low US immigration numbers. If more than 50,000 individuals have immigrated fro a country in the past five years those countries are not eligible. Many protest that these requirements are discriminatory, too.
Independent Groups like the USAGC Organization will assist applicants. However, ‘professional services’ like information checks, correcting wrong or invalid data, support in different languages, timely submission of the application and an assurance that the green card application will not be disqualified for any reason must be paid for. The State Department has made the application process very simple and suggests that these services are not really needed.
The State Department hopes to avoid the fiasco that occurs in the 2011 drawing. A glitch in the computer program selected 22,316 individuals by the date of application (first come first served), rather than by truly random process. The results were declared invalid and another drawing was made, but the initial results had already been posted. By the time the lottery was declared invalid; two million people had already visited the site, many believing they were winners.
A law suit was brought against the State Department by White and Associates of Los Angles representing 36 individuals who lost out in the second drawing. They insisted that, in fairness, the original drawing winners should receive diversity-visas, too. However, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson recently ruled “the Court cannot order the Department of State to honor a botched process that did not satisfy that regulatory and statutory requirements” of randomization. The process is a lottery and the individual who is given an opportunity to become a US citizen must be selected by chance alone.
Many of the initial winners had quit jobs, got married so they could bring family along or made other arrangements to come to the United States. Judge Jackson listened to the plaintiffs’ stories but said, “There are 19 million more stories, from other lottery participants, many of which may be equally or even more compelling, and it is for that reason that Congress determined that every applicant would have and equal chance of winning the right to apply for the visa.” She offered sympathy for “emotional impact” and “painful and real experiences” associated with the reversal of the lottery results.
Attorneys with White and Associates said in a statement: “The end result is that the American government has lost credibility—promising 22,000 individuals the right to proceed with the immigration process and then snatching away that hope and promise. The State Department may have won in court, but it lost the hearts and minds of 22,000 individuals from all around the world.” They went on to point out that “This is a highly coveted prize, as winners may ultimately qualify for US citizenship, and it provides a means of applying for a visa that does not depend upon sponsorship by an employer or relative.”
Some American groups are against the Diversity-Visa Lottery. They claim that terrorists, people with criminal records or people with communicable diseases or mental defects may be granted entry to the country. They advocate sticking to the normal screening processes. They also do not believe it is right to provide airfare and relocation assistance to the winners at taxpayer expense. Some proponents argue that there is only about a one in 60 chance of winning the lottery so the likelihood that an ‘undesirable’ will be selected is slim. They say that diversity is a very important aspect of American culture and this is a way to assure it. Some of the lottery winners may very well become productive citizens.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)It's not about people nowadays don't want to immigrate to the US. It's just that this year, Bangladesh is not allowed to participate in the lottery. Last year, of the 16 million entrants, 7.8 millions were from Bangladesh (And most of them were cheats; a good news for other entrants). So if you do the math, 16-7.8=8.2 . So I don't think that the enthusiasm of the world in getting a US green card has decreased.
The USA is still the greatest country on Earth and people all over the globe still want to immigrate there.
NB:I'm not a US citizen, and i don't even have the Green card.Thanks for reading and commenting. You may have missed my point.
'They also do not believe it is right to provide airfare and relocation assistance to the winners at taxpayer expense'
The dv program doesnt provide any airfare or relocation assistance to winners. if anything the winners have to pay a non refundable $891 and some of them do get rejected!!thanks for reading and correcting
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