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Diversity Visa Lottery Winners Defend and Critique Maligned Program

Immigrants taking part in a naturalization ceremony in September.Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Reader Center is a newsroom initiative that is helping The Times build deeper ties with our audience.

In a week full of grim news about Tuesday’s terrorist attack in New York — including the revelation that the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, gained admission to the United States through a program known as the diversity visa lottery — tensions flared between readers in our comments section over the screening of immigrants. President Trump on Wednesday called on Congress to end the program in favor of the “merit based” selection of immigrants.

The Times’s Miriam Jordan reports that while Congress has been debating the visa lottery for years, according to a 2011 Congressional Service Report, federal agencies have failed to reach a consensus about the safety of the program.

One comment from a reader frustrated about his own immigration status as others win the visa lottery and secure permanent residency in the United States resonated with hundreds of people, rising to our most popular comment among 1,254 on a story about the attack.

I’m a high skilled immigrant from a populous country waiting to get my green card for the last seven years. I serve American people in a rural under served area. And there is this guy who got lucky via ‘diversity lottery program’. High time America shed identity politics and reward the talent and performance.

Karl, California

Another reader’s letter to the editor, offering a different take on the visa lottery, landed in our inboxes Thursday. The letter’s author, Livia Ungur, told us that she was an emerging filmmaker who had won the diversity visa lottery, too, and urged us to listen to people like her.

We asked our readers who had experience with the lottery to tell us about the program, and how, if at all, they thought it could be improved. We heard from about two dozen readers. Here is a selection of the responses, which have been edited for length and clarity.

In the early years of the program, many lottery winners were Irish, because the lottery had been designed to revive dwindling European immigration.

I’m from Ireland. My uncle applied in the early 90s. The late 80s were very grim here, lots of unemployment. In my first year in college we learned that only one graduate had got a job the year before. We were educated for emigration, mostly the U.K. I just chose the U.S., loved the idea of the place.

I do not really think the diversity visa was ever abused. I know illegal Irish dodged tax, simply because they had no way to pay. Legals never messed about, there really was no abuse among legals.

I’m back home in Ireland. Lost my job in N.Y. after 9-11 and the dot com crash. Got offered others but couldn’t settle so we came home.

Aidan O’Connor, Ireland

Now, about half the winners are from Africa.

I immigrated from Nigeria to the United States in 2007 having won the DV lottery visa. Prior to that, I had made a trip to the United States as a practicing visual artist. My experience of winning the lottery visa was life changing because I also coincidentally won a three month African arts fellowship at the UCLA at the same time.

Previously, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fine arts in 1986 and was a cartoonist and illustrator at the Daily Times of Nigeria before leaving for a stint in advertising. In 1996, I decided to to engage myself as a full-time studio artist and painter.

Winston Salem, N.C.

To be elible for the lottery, applicants must have a high school education or its equivalent, or two years of work experience. But some have much more.

I am originally from Venezuela. I applied for the DV lottery over 12 times before being selected. When I was selected I was living in the U.S. with my wife (also Venezuelan), we both had H1-B visas. By that time, we had already been in the U.S. for seven years. We came initially with student visas and we both completed Ph.D.s in chemical engineering. Being selected for the DV saved us a lot of time, effort, money and uncertainty in getting our green cards (as compared with going through an employment based process).

Simon Albo, Evanston, Ill.

I’m from Indonesia. I was already here on a student visa then work visa H1-B. I had been working in a software/tech company. I could only get my H1-B visa renewed one more time, then I need a company to sponsor my green card. As my first H1-B was near expiration, I won the lottery (diversity visa). So my company decided to help process the green card instead of renewing my H1-B. Win-win situation for us.

Inge, Pewaukee, Wis.

I’m from New Zealand, by way of Australia (where I was working at the time). Life was good. But I wanted to chase career opportunities in America, switch up my lifestyle and enjoy a different cultural immersion.

Pat Rowley, Brooklyn, N.Y.

I’m from Australia — I always wanted to move to NYC, so the DV Lottery was a no-brainer, and it seemed to be common for Australians to be selected. I wasn’t living through any hardships, but wanted to come to the U.S. to pursue career advancement.

Benn Finn, New York, N.Y.

I’m originally from France. I entered the lottery in 2015, won in 2016 and got my green card in June of this year. The application itself is very simple and requires only a name, basic demographic information and a recent photo. However, once I “won” and received a lottery number, I had to provide the same documentation as any other green card applicant.

This includes past employment for the last 10 years and all addresses since I was 16. I had to provide copies of all visas and passports used to enter and leave the U.S. and dates for those trips, as well as copies of all supporting visa documentation for my student and work visas. I had to submit transcripts and copies of diplomas from my undergraduate and graduate programs, copies of my tax returns for the last three years, six months’ worth of paystubs, multiple versions of similar forms asking for demographic, work, residential information for different time periods.

I was also fingerprinted by DHS and had to get a medical exam, including a blood test, verification of a list of vaccines and a TB test. I don’t remember if I also had to provide a urine sample.

After all this, I had an interview with a USCIS officer, who asked me a lot of questions and verified that my answers matched those in my forms and generally asked me about why I wanted to get a green card and then I waited for the FBI background check to be done and everything to finish being processed.

Gaelle Sabben, Seattle, Wash.

As our reporter found, an Egyptian immigrant who shot and killed two people in 2002 at Los Angeles International Airport had obtained a permanent resident card as the husband of a lottery winner, the 2011 Congressional Service Report said. And in 2004, the State Department’s deputy inspector general warned about the risk of granting visas to winners from countries with ties to terrorism, the report noted.

But in 2007, the report said, the Government Accountability Office found no evidence that diversity visa winners posed a threat.

All the readers who wrote to us defended the program, but some also proposed modifications.

I’m originally from Morocco. I won the DV in 2005 and came to the U.S. in 2006. It’s actually pure luck for me because I was studying my last year in nursing school when a friend of my family applied online for almost every person he know. My name was the only one chosen in the lottery.

I would definitely recommend making it a merit based at the selection stage. So instead of just asking people to enter the basic information in the system, they should add fields that ask about education and work experience and also some basic English questions.

Also, given how much our world changed post 9/11, I would recommend some psychology and ideology tests and questions just make sure the person is ready to simulate and blend in and also open to other cultures and believes.

Hoda A., Albuquerque, N.M.

A correction was made on 
Nov. 6, 2017

An earlier version of this article misstated the gender of a reader commenting on the diversity visa lottery program. The reader, Livia Ungur, is a woman, not a man.

How we handle corrections

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

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