Diversity Visa Lottery: LEGAL immigration program allows 50,000 into US each year because we don’t have enough diversity!
We have written a little bit over the years about the truly outrageous ‘Diversity Visa Lottery,’ sometimes referred to as the ‘Green card lottery.’
I’m writing about it now so that our many new readers understand that it isn’t just the Refugee Admissions Program that is allowing immigrants into the US who could potentially threaten our security in addition to competing with Americans for limited job opportunities.
Obama with Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. “The Green Card Lottery has really been the African Green Card Lottery.” In 2009 Lee attempted to change the Diversity lottery by adding another 50,000 which would have brought 100,000 annual “winners” to America.
The program, like the Refugee resettlement program, is the brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Beginning in 1996 we began offering 50,000 slots (it can be confusing because some reports say 55,000) for legal immigration to the US in a lottery system that is shocking when you begin to examine it. It’s primary purpose is to increase our diversity!
We sure did increase our diversity as 1 million LEGAL immigrants entered the US in the last 20 years as a result of the Kennedy/Bush lottery.
The lottery aims to diversify the immigrant population in the United States, by selecting applicants mostly from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States in the previous five years.
Unsuccessful efforts have been made in recent years to kill it, but among the programs great supporters are the very same federal refugee resettlement contractors we write about every day. Every time Congress has advanced bills to cut the lottery or cut its funding, who pops up to defend it? The VOLAGS!
One would think they might be concerned about increasing competition from the lottery winners for the scarce jobs that their refugees desperately need! Guess not!
If you would like to check it out yourselves, just type in one of the contractor’s names along with ‘diversity visa lottery’ and you will get lots of testimony and lots of lobbying by the contractors to keep the lottery alive.
New York Uzbek’s largely here thanks to Diversity Visa Lottery
What got me thinking about it this morning was a New York Times piece about ten days ago entitled:
Accusations of Terrorism Worry Brooklyn’s Uzbek Community
We learned that a large number of New York City’s Uzbek (mostly Muslim) immigrants came in through the lottery. However, we have also admitted Uzbek’s as refugees and have had some terror busts involving those. Here is one in Idaho.
Immigrants from Uzbekistan have been arriving in New York with help from a diversity visa lottery program, which the United States government created in 1990 to foster immigration from countries with previously low rates. The State Department issues 55,000 green cards every year through its diversity visa program and for the 2014-15 year, 4,368 were allotted to Uzbek lottery winners, the department said. [It was 5,101 in 2013, see below—-ed]
In my quick search I couldn’t find the 2014 “winners,” but here are the 2013 lucky ducks! I’ve selected some of the countries (those with the largest number of winners) from which “enrichment” has arrived on our shores. (See this commentary about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops going to bat for the lottery in Congressional testimony). Remember this line when you look at the list!
….a diverse pool of immigrants makes our nation a culturally richer place. [Who says so?—ed]
Selected entrants—2013
Here (and below) are the largest ethnic groups given green cards after winning the lottery in 2013:
Africa:
Algeria (2,161)
Cameroon (3,858)
DR Congo (3,924)
Egypt (5,015)
Ethiopia (4,910)
Ghana (5,105)
Kenya (4,410)
Morocco (2,068)
Nigeria (6,218)
Sierra Leone (2,516)
Togo (1,065)
Asia:
Iran (6,029)
Nepal (4,370)
Europe:
Albania (1,520)
Armenia (1,174)
Belarus (1,195)
Bulgaria (1,299)
Poland (2,038)
Russia (2,846)
Turkey (1,807)
Ukraine (6,424)
Uzbekistan (5,101)
The next time you hear an elected official mouth this foolish line know that he or she doesn’t know what the heck they are talking about!
I’m o.k. with legal immigration, but it is illegal immigration I have a problem with!
To learn more, we have a category on the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery’ here.
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