Another 50,000 wannabe migrants to US learned if
they won the lottery to America this week,
by Ann Corcoran, 5/7/17
I’ve concluded that I need to start
writing more about other ways legal immigrants get to the US from Islamic terror-producing
parts of the world.
This week tens of thousands learned
whether they won the “diversity visa lottery” (aka green card lottery) and will
soon be on the way to your town.
Overlooked by most
everyone is this insane lottery set up with the premise that the US is lacking
in diversity and needs more of it!
Previously, I wrote about the
‘Diversity Visa Lottery’ (see category here) a lot, but it has fallen off my radar screen as the UN/US Refugee Admissions
Program has drawn so much attention.
The WaPo tells us that Trump has not
mentioned the Diversity Visa Lottery. Has any staff member told him about it?
Frankly I’ve been disappointed that
no other private citizen investigators have taken up the cause of writing about
this program, or about Temporary Protected Status, or Immigrant Food
Stamp/welfare fraud. Those are all areas where someone should write
exclusively on the topic!
Goodness knows there is enough
material to keep someone going daily on just one of those topics.
Here the Washington Post tells us that earlier this week the new
‘winners’ were announced. By the way, refugee numbers do not count when
determining ineligible countries, so we take lottery applicants from Cuba, Iraq, Burma, and
Iran to name just a few.
WaPo (at The Denver Post):
On Tuesday, more than 14 million anxious people around the world will begin
checking computers and smartphones in one of the strangest rituals of the U.S.
immigration system. When the clock strikes noon in Washington, they will be
able to visit a State Department website, enter their names, years of birth and
16-digit identification numbers. Then they will press “submit” to learn whether
they have won one of the world’s most coveted contests: the U.S. green card
lottery.
Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery, as it is officially known,
provides up to 55,000 randomly selected foreigners – fewer than 1 percent of
those who enter the drawing – with permanent residency in the United States.
I learned something I didn’t know!
Mohammad Atta tried twice to win the lottery, but ultimately got in (as sadly
we know) using another legal visa.
The current lottery coincides with
an intense debate over immigration and comes amid policy changes that have made
the country less welcoming to new arrivals. President Donald Trump has cracked
down on illegal immigration and pressed forward with plans to build a wall
along the border with
Mexico. He has issued executive orders targeting
foreign workers, refugees and travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries.
But he hasn’t said a word
about the green card lottery. Its days may be numbered,
nonetheless. The lottery appears to conflict with the president’s call for a
“merit-based” immigration system. And at least two bills in the
Republican-controlled Congress seek to eliminate the program.
“The Diversity Lottery is plagued with fraud, advances no economic or
humanitarian interest, and does not even deliver the diversity of its
namesake,” according to a news release
from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a co-sponsor of one of the bills.
Just what we need, 50,000
people annually, some with barely a high school education, and with spouses and
families along for the ride!
The lottery’s premise is simple. It’s not connected to employment or
family members in the United States. Instead, the only requirement is that
entrants be adults with a high school diploma or two years of work experience.
Winners can bring spouses and children. Citizens
of countries that have sent 50,000 people to the United States in the past five
years – such as Canada, China, India, Nigeria and Mexico – are ineligible to
participate.
The lottery, which was launched in
its present form in 1995, is especially beloved in Eastern Europe and Africa.
In recent years, the two regions have accounted for more than two-thirds of
lottery winners. In Liberia and other West African countries, nearly 10 percent of the
population applies each year.
The program – operated from a
consular center in Williamsburg, Kentucky [Mitch McConnell country!—ed] – has
been on the chopping block before. It came under attack in 2002 after an
Egyptian terrorist who killed two people in Los Angeles was found to be in the
United States through his wife’s diversity visa. Mohamed Atta, another Egyptian and one of the
9/11 suicide pilots, had entered the lottery twice before entering the United
States on a different visa to study aviation.
“If you’re a terrorist organization and you can get a few hundred
people to apply to this from several countries . . . odds are you’d get one or
two of them picked,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told The Washington Post in
2011 after introducing an ill-fated bill to kill the program.
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