October 1 marks the beginning of the 30-day registration period for the annual Diversity Visa (green card) Lottery. This program was sponsored by the late Senator Edward Kennedy under section 203 (c) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1990 to help even out the proportions of immigrants from different European countries which, at the time, were viewed as skewed in favor of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. But is this a program whose time has come and gone?
To meet the diversity goal, any country that has admitted over 50,000 immigrants into the U.S. in the last five years is not eligible for the Diversity Visa Program. This currently excludes citizens of countries such as Mexico, Canada, mainland China, and about a dozen other countries and islands that are part of the United Kingdom. Because of the rolling 50,000 limit, countries can come and go from the “visa-eligible” list. For example, Poland is now eligible again after being eliminated in 2007, and Nigeria was eliminated for this year’s lottery.
Besides the “nativity” requirement (applicants must be born in a visa-eligible country to qualify), they must also have the equivalent of a U.S. high school education, with at least two years of experience in the last five years in one of the jobs listed in the Department of Labor’s oddly named O*Net database. A quick perusal of the list of qualifying occupations reveals that the vast majority of those jobs actually require a college degree or even a post-baccalaureate education.
The lottery is extremely popular abroad because it does not depend on sponsorship by an employer or a close relative, so it represents a short cut to receive Lawful Permanent Resident status (aka a “green card”), and 5 years later the possibility of full U.S. Citizenship.
Of the millions who apply each October via the U.S. State Department website, 100,000 are selected randomly by computer for interviews and background checks either at a U.S. Consulate abroad or at a local USCIS office in the United States. Winners verify their winning status online starting May 1 of the following year after they apply. However, winning is certainly no guarantee of getting a visa.
Interviewees must bring their birth and marriage certificates, proof of education or work in a qualifying occupation, and more, including evidence they have a job waiting in the United States or the name of someone willing to pay for their living costs until they find a job so they do not become a “public charge.” Of those 100,000 initial selectees, about half or 50,000 are eventually selected.
By most accounts the program has been an enormous success despite a few very visible public relations setbacks. For example, in 2002 there was the case of an Egyptian lottery winner shooting two people at the Los Angeles International Airport. In 2011, the State Department’s Department of Visa Services who administer the program, had an embarrassing computer glitch that accidentally informed 22,000 people that they were selected as winners although they were in fact not selected. This resulted in thousands of potential winners discarding their entry numbers after mistakenly believing they lost.
And the DV Program, like any other government program, has been affected by fraud. Not surprisingly, applicants have been known to use fake documentation to misrepresent themselves to USCIS or State Department personnel during their interview. In other cases applicants have been victimized by scam emails claiming to originate from the State Department that tell the victim they won the lottery and ask for hefty fees to process their application. In fact, the first widely circulated spam email was by the husband and wife immigration lawyer team of Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel in 1994 to solicit green card lottery service provider fees.
There are examples of highly educated, English-fluent applicants who fail to read or understand government instructions and do not receive their visas due to avoidable mistakes throughout the process. Using shoddy or outright fraudulent independent lottery service providers represents yet another problem. In some cases these providers charge applicants for services or goods that are unnecessary.
Ethical, fee-based lottery services such as the American Dream (and others) represent a viable choice for many applicants who need or just want the peace of mind knowing they have help throughout the process from registering to finding an immigration attorney if they win.
The lottery represents one of the few avenues for legal entry into the United States, especially for those from African and Caribbean countries. But poorer non-citizens are without lobbyists, let alone a significant number of supporters in Congress. For this reason the lottery has been on the chopping block for years by conservatives such as Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) who view the winners as a threat to national security, as taking jobs away from Americans, or that the program admits too many undesirables via a process of “chain-migration.”
However, the number of immigrants admitted to the United States by the lottery represents only about 5% of the overall number. And independent immigration studies have shown that legal immigrants contribute to the economy, promote true diversity, and help reduce the deficit.
The program also pays for itself via relatively steep fees charged to every alien and family member admitted into the country. And common sense indicates that changing U.S. demographics and lower birth rates foreshadow the need to bring in more workers into the United States—a point underscored by supporters of overall immigration reform.
This past year Senate Bill S.744 finally eviscerated the program as part of the proposed immigration reform compromise, favoring instead a system that admits more skills-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) applicants versus a system based partially on diversity. However, the 2013 green card lottery was saved by congressional inaction, thanks in part to the Syria crisis and then the budget impasse, but particularly by House Republicans who continue to threaten to derail reform altogether by piecemeal inaction.
So where will the lottery go from here?
Assuming the House of Representatives passes comprehensive immigration reform this fall or in early 2014 (a very big assumption), 2013 will be the final year of the lottery and terminate one of the many legislative legacies of Edward Kennedy.
But supporters of the lottery should not overestimate the ability of the House to pass much-needed immigration reform. Ironically, the lottery could be saved by the very same forces that argue the most for its demise.
