More visas for educated, skilled workers
Global India Newswire
WASHINGTON, DC: One of the casualties of a highly charged immigration reform debate may be the US government’s Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, popularly known as Green Card Lottery, reports The Washington Post.
Since 1995, when it came into effect, more than 1 million people have been given green cards under this congressionally mandated program.
The program, which provides 55,000 green cards each fiscal year to people from countries with low US immigration rates, has been a lightning road among some Republican members of Congress. Many say the lottery might allow terrorists to enter the United States. Others also point to its susceptibility to fraud.
Starting in 2005, congressional opponents have passed a number of bills to eliminate the program.
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, introduced in the Senate last month by the so-called Gang of Eight senators, call for the repeal of Green Card lottery after fiscal year 2015.
The Post reports that “Under a Senate compromise, the program would be eliminated and its visa slots would be subsumed into a broad system that stresses skills, education and other criteria for legal immigration.”
Those born in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Philippines, South Korea and the UK are not eligible to apply for green card lottery because more than 55,000 have emigrated from these countries in the past five years.
According to the Department of State, nearly 8 million – more than 12.5 million when spouses and children are included – applied for 55,000 green cards available this year.
The visa program is enormously popular in many countries around the world, especially in African nations. More than 1.3 million Nigerians and 900,000 Ghanaians applied for the visas in the current fiscal year.
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