Nineteen Nations Barred from United States' Diversity Visa

by Special Correspondent
September 17, 2011

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1804/nineteen-nations-barred-from-united-states

Bangladesh and 18 other countries have been declared ineligible for the upcoming US Diversity Visa [DV-2013] as these countries have already send more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the past five years. The 18 other countries, whose nationals are also declared ineligible are: Brazil, Canada, China [mainland-born], Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom [except northern Ireland] and its dependent territories, and Vietnam. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region), Macau SAR and Taiwan, however, are eligible for the program. Natives of South Sudan and Poland are now eligible for the selection of DV visas. During 2013, a total number of 50,000 diversity visas will be available to persons meeting simple, but strict, eligibility requirements. Application for DV-13 will start on October 8, 2011.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program issues up to 50,000 Diversity Visas [DV] annually, drawn from a random selection among all entries, to people who meet strict eligibility requirements from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The Diversity Immigrant Visa program is a United States congressionally mandated lottery program for receiving a United States Permanent Resident Card. It is also known as the Green Card Lottery. The lottery is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203[c] of the Immigration and Nationality Act [INA]. Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 [Pub. L. 101-649] amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" [DV immigrants]. The Act makes available 50,000permanent resident visas annually to natives of countries deemed to have low rates of immigration to the United States.

The first program was DV-1995, and the following 13 countries were ineligible from the start: Canada, China [mainland], Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom [except Northern Ireland] and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.

Changes to the list of countries over the years include the following:

DV-1996: Columbia ineligible.

DV-1998: Poland ineligible.

DV-2002: Poland and Taiwan eligible, Pakistan ineligible.

DV-2004: East Timor added, eligible.

DV-2005: Russia ineligible.

DV-2007: Poland again ineligible.

DV-2008: Brazil and Peru ineligible; Serbia and Montenegro listed separately, both eligible.

DV-2009: Ecuador and Guatemala ineligible.

DV-2010: Russia eligible; Kosovo added, eligible.

The large number of changes for DV-2002 was due to a three-year gap between the publication of the 1998 and 1999 immigration statistics. In other words, DV-2001 was still using the statistics from the five-year period from 1994 to 1998 to determine country eligibility. As immigration has increased, the number of ineligible countries has risen, from 13 for DV-1995 to 19 now. Taiwan is the only country which was ineligible in 1995 but eligible now due to decreasing immigration.

Russia fell below the ineligibility limit for DV-2010 due to a combination of a sharp drop off in adoptions [from 5,878 in 2004 to 2,301 in 2007] and the unusual bureaucratic quirk of large numbers of Russian immigrants being allocated to "Soviet Union [former]" rather than Russia in 2006 and 2007.

Over 13.6 million applications for the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery [DV-2010] were submitted — an increase of 4.5 million, or 50%, from the 9.1 million applications submitted in the 2007 Diversity Visa Lottery [DV-2009]. Starting with the DV-2008, several questions and options for answers have been added. Applicants are now required to provide information, such as the country where they currently live and their highest level of education achieved, in the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form [E-DV Entry Form]. The open registration period for the lottery was restored from 60 days to 30 days beginning with the calendar year 2010 diversity visa lottery [DV-2012].

Winning Chances for DV Visa [From DV-2007 5o DV-2012]:

Region	DV-2007	DV-2008	DV-2009	DV-2010	DV-2011	DV-2012
Africa	1.31%	2.40%	2.30%	2.19%	2.06%	1.69%
Asia	0.48%	0.63%	0.64%	0.61%	0.68%	0.84%
Europe	1.26%	1.85%	1.94%	2.10%	1.75%	1.63%
North America	0.61%	0.64%	0.38%	0.69%	0.47%	0.4%
Oceania	4.13%	4.57%	4.62%	5.49%	4.63%	5.28%
South and Central America and the Caribbean	0.65%	0.84%	1.05%	1.69%	1.07%	1.08%

Jump in those probabilities from DV-2007 to DV-2008 was caused by significant improvement in fraud prevention techniques and error prevention techniques [mainly catching duplicate entries and throwing out entries with invalid photos]. Legitimate entry for the purpose of this table is an entry with photos of humans satisfying all photo requirements that do not have duplicates where photos coincide as files. Legitimate entries are not disqualified during the selection process.

DV-2012 Results:

For the 2012 Diversity Visa Lottery, the winning applicants were apportioned as follows:

Region	Winner Allocation	Country with Highest Number of Winners	Countries with High Fraud Level [percent of entries which are illegitimate and therefore disqualified during selection process]
Africa	50.00 %	Nigeria	Nigeria 82.71%, Egypt 65.6%, Ethiopia 64.06%, Ghana 56.65%, Sudan 54.7%, Niger 46.73%
Europe	30.98 %	Ukraine	Ukraine 71.49%, Belarus 61.63%, Latvia 52.28%, Uzbekistan 47.81%, Armenia 40.38%, Lithuania 40.04%
Asia	15.00 %	Iran	Bangladesh 96.71%
South and Central America and the Caribbean	2.00 %	Venezuela	Almost no fraudulent entries
Oceania	2.00 %	Australia	Fiji 16.32%
North America	0.02%	Bahamas [only eligible country in North America]	Almost no fraudulent entries

The percentage of fraudulent entries from Bangladesh has been difficult to eradicate from the very beginning. According to Testimony of Stephen A. Edson Before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement Hearing on the Diversity Visa Program "In Bangladesh, for example, one agent is reported to have enrolled an entire phone book so that he could then either extort money from winning applicants who had never entered the program to begin with or sell their winning slots to others"

In December 2005, the United States House of Representatives voted 273-148 to add an amendment to the border enforcement bill H.R. 4437 abolishing the DV. Opponents of the lottery said it was susceptible to fraud and was a way for terrorists to enter the country. The Senate never passed the bill.

In March 2007, Congressman Bob Goodlatte [R-VA] introduced H.R. 1430, which would eliminate the diversity visa program. In June 2007, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2764 to eliminate funding for the program, and the Senate did likewise in September. However, the final version of this bill with amendments, signed into law on December 26, 2007, did not include the removal of funds for the program. Several attempts have been made over the last several years to eliminate the lottery. Although H.R. 2764 was an appropriation bill and could only cut funds for the lottery during one fiscal year, this was the first time that both the House and the Senate passed a bill to halt the diversity visa program H.R. 2764.

Rep. Goodlatte reintroduced his Security and Fairness Enhancement for America Act [formerly H.R. 1430, now H.R. 2305] on May 7, 2009. The bill would have amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the diversity immigrant program completely, but did not pass.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-TX] introduced the Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2009 [H.R. 264] on January 7, 2009. The bill would have doubled the number of diversity visas available to 110,000 yearly. The bill did not pass.

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