Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Immigrants hope to win U.S. green cards
Applicants await the Diversity Visa Lottery, which provides up to 55,000 randomly selected foreigners with permanent residency.
On Tuesday, more than 14 million anxious people around the world will begin checking computers and smartphones in one of the strangest rituals of the U.S. immigration system. When the clock strikes noon in Washington, they will be able to visit a State Department website, enter their names, years of birth and 16-digit identification numbers. Then they will press “submit” to learn whether they have won one of the world’s most coveted contests: the U.S. green card lottery.
Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery, as it is officially known, provides up to 55,000 randomly selected foreigners — fewer than 1 percent of those who enter the drawing — with permanent residency in the United States.
The current lottery coincides with an intense debate over immigration and comes amid policy changes that have made the country less welcoming to new arrivals. President Donald Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration and pressed forward with plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He has issued executive orders targeting foreign workers, refugees and travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries.
But he hasn’t said a word about the green card lottery.
Its days may be numbered, nonetheless. The lottery appears to conflict with the president’s call for a “merit-based” immigration system. And at least two bills in the Republicancontrolled Congress seek to eliminate the program.
In the eyes of its supporters, the lottery provides the U.S. with positive public relations, countering the perception that the country no longer lives up to the ideals symbolized by the Statue of Liberty.
For past winners and current applicants, the lottery is something simpler: a golden ticket that not even America’s current political turmoil can tarnish.
The lottery’s premise is simple. It’s not connected to employment or family members in the United States. Instead, the only requirement is that entrants be adults with a high school diploma or two years of work experience. Winners can bring spouses and children.
The lottery, which was launched in its present form in 1995, is especially beloved in Eastern Europe and Africa. In recent years, the two regions have accounted for more than twothirds of lottery winners.
Winning is often a mixed blessing. Once awarded a visa, winners have only six months to move to the United States.
Tarig Elhakim was in medical school in Sudan when his father persuaded him to apply in the fall of 2014. He was stunned when he won.
His interview wasn’t until August of last year. At the U.S. Embassy, he saw one dejected applicant after another emerge from the interview room. But when it was his turn, the official stamped his papers and said, “Welcome to America.”
“I had goose bumps all over my body,” said Elhakim, 22. “It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”
But America was changing. In 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims like Elhakim coming to the United States. Then Trump was elected.
Elhakim decided he had better move to the United States before Trump took office. He flew to Washington on Dec. 28, less than a month before the inauguration. He now lives in Arlington, Va., and is studying for his medical license so he can work as a doctor here.
Among those anxiously awaiting this year’s results is Elhakim’s roommate, Abdelsalam Khalafalla. The 24-year-old was born to Sudanese parents in Saudi Arabia and grew up there but does not have Saudi citizenship. And so, on Tuesday, like millions of others, Khalafalla will pull up the State Department website, click submit and learn whether luck has smiled on him.