The Green Card Lottery may be stopped
By Ellie Velinska
January 7, 2010
Right Pundits.com
Congressman Lamar Smith and Congressman Bob Goodlatte, sent a letter to the Chairman of the Judiciary committee, Congressman John Conyers, urging the committee to consider legislation eliminating the annual visa lottery. Each year there is a national immigration lottery by which 50,000 aliens may become legal permanent residents of the U.S. State sponsors of terrorism are not excluded from this program.
Since I am one of the winners of the lottery and I am an American citizen today because of it (no longer an alien my spaceship has landed), let me tell you how it works. Anybody from approved list of countries can apply. Countries from which big groups of immigrants are present in America are excluded from the lottery. Examples for such countries are Mexico, Canada, China, India and Russia. This is why they call it a Diversity Visa lottery.
There is 3 to 4 time more winners then visas, because winning the lottery does not mean the person gets a green card automatically. Every winner goes through one year long process of background check and final interview at the US embassy after this review. High school diploma is required. Feel free to ask me question about the process in our comment section. I am an expert I applied, I won, I came and I became an American.
Here are parts of the Congressmen statements:
The visa lottery program poses a national security threat. Under the program, each successful applicant is chosen at random and given the status of permanent resident based on pure luck, Rep. Goodlatte said. Usually, immigrant visas are issued to foreign nationals who have an existing connection with a family member lawfully residing in the United States or with a U.S. employer. These types of relationships help to ensure that immigrants entering the country have a stake in our nations continued success, and have needed skills to contribute to our nations economy. However, under the visa lottery program, visas are awarded to immigrants at random without meeting such criteria.
People from Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Syria and 13 of the 14 nations named by TSA to go through patting down on airport security are allowed to participate in the Green Card lottery.
The visa lottery is a dangerous game with our national security. America already has the most generous immigration policy in the world, admitting over one million legal immigrants each year. But under the current lottery system, up to 50,000 randomly selected alien applicants win visas each year, many from countries with a significant terrorist presence. We should end this dangerous game for the sake of our national security said Rep. Smith.
Let me just point that those are 50 000 legal immigrants that passed security checks as opposing to millions of illegal immigrants that just come and stay without any control over that whatsoever.
I agree that the Green Card Lottery should go under a national security review.
Killing the lottery though will be a great disappointment for many decent folks around the world that hope to take a chance on the American dream and do it legally, like I did 11 years ago.
