Chance News 75

U.S. Visa lottery

“A Losing Ticket in the American Lottery”
by Miriam Jordan and Alexandra Berzon, The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2011

For 20 years the U.S. State Department, through its Diversity Visa Program, has been conducting an annual green-card lottery, wherein about 50,000 people a year are offered a chance to win permanent residence in the U.S. This program was started because the traditional immigration system, which is still in effect, was said to be too geographically restricted due to a priority given to family members of U.S. residents.

The lottery is free to enter, and winners pay $819 in fees after their selection. In the first year of online applications, almost 6 million entries were submitted. The article describes snafus in the selection process, which have caused many accepted candidates to be disappointed when their acceptances have been withdrawn.

The article provides this chart comparing lottery-system immigrants with traditional-system immigrants:

http://community.middlebury.edu/~wpeterso/Chance_News/images/CN75_visa.png

Submitted by Margaret Cibes