Thread: Half as Many Entrants Play Green-Card Lottery

NOVEMBER 11, 2011.

Half as Many Entrants Play Green-Card Lottery

By MIRIAM JORDAN

Only eight million people tried to win a green card in the latest U.S. diversity-visa lottery, the State Department said, compared with a record 15 million last year.

That figure could slide further in coming years, because the Senate recently passed a measure to charge a fee for entering the electronic draw, starting with next year's drawing.

A State Department spokeswoman attributed the drop in entries this year to the fact that Bangladeshis—for many years the most numerous applicants—weren't eligible to participate. The South Asian nation is no longer classified as a low-immigration country to the U.S.

The diversity-visa lottery is an immigration program that offers a quick path to permanent U.S. residence for 50,000 people each year who are selected randomly by the U.S. government from countries that send few immigrants to the U.S. Earlier this year, a computer glitch forced the government to redo the previous lottery, after 22,000 people were incorrectly notified that they had won.

During the monthlong entry period every fall, the green-card lottery generates a frenzy in countries across Africa, the source of most entries now.

Previously
Playing the U.S. Visa Lottery in Ethiopia (11/5/2011)

This year, the three countries that submitted the most entries were Nigeria, with 1.36 million; Ghana, with 909,000; and Ukraine, with 853,000. Last year, Bangladesh accounted for 7.6 million entries.

Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) won approval for a bill to extend federal benefits to disabled refugees living within the U.S. The bill included a new $30 fee to enter the diversity-visa lottery. The House is expected to pass the same measure.

A spokesman for Mr. Schumer said the fee would help offset the cost of the program and avoid adding to the U.S. budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office had estimated it would cost about $36 million to provide a one-year extension to the program for refugees.

The results of this year's diversity-visa draw will be announced in May.

Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 74672.html

he diversity-visa lottery is an immigration program that offers a quick path to permanent U.S. residence for 50,000 people each year who are selected randomly by the U.S. government from countries that send few immigrants to the U.S. Earlier this year, a computer glitch forced the government to redo the previous lottery, after 22,000 people were incorrectly notified that they had won.

Really?????? 50,000 people??????

. . . As of 2006, the United States accepts more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined.[1]

Since the removal of ethnic quotas in immigration in 1965,[2] the number of first- generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled,[3] from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007.[4]

1,046,539 persons were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 2008.

The leading emigrating countries to the United States were Mexico, India, the Philippines, and China.[5]

Nearly 14 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2010. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigratio ... ted_States