Immigration Lawyer Blog
On October 31, 2017, eight people were killed in a terrorist attack in New York City. Because the suspect originally came to the United States through the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program, there has been a lot of discussions regarding the future of the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program. Most prominently, U.S. President Donald Trump, has called on Congress to repeal the program.
Since the attack, there has been a lot of false reporting on what exactly the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program is. This blog post is intended to provide a brief overview of what exactly the Diversity Visa Immigrant Program is.
The Diversity Visa Immigrant Program is designed to allow a certain number of individuals to immigrate each year from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Under Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a certain number of visas (currently set at 50,000 visas a year) is set aside for the program. Under the program, the visas are distributed among six regions. In addition, no more than seven percent of the visas issued each year may go to nationals of the same country. Further, citizens of countries with high rates of immigration to the United States, are not eligible to apply for a visa through the program. (Please see the attached link for a list of countries where citizens are not currently eligible.)