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The Immigration Lottery Compounds A Dysfunctional Immigration Process - In 1990, Congress recognized that the way we were selecting new immigrants was both dysfunctional and unfair. Almost all the available immigration visas were being filled by extended family members seeking to be “reunited” with their relatives living here. This heavy emphasis on extended family reunification meant that we were taking pot luck when it came to the job skills and education levels of new immigrants, and it was creating vast flows from a relative handful of countries while essentially shutting out other applicants. Lacking the political courage to revamp an entrenched system that had developed a strong special interest constituency, Congress instead opted to add on new provisions, while leaving the core policy in place. What emerged in 1990 was the Immigration Diversity Lottery, which, predictably, has turned into an even greater travesty than the failed policy it was supposed to rectify. Conceived by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) in response to strong demand at the time for new immigration opportunities for Irish citizens, the law created 50,000 visas for applicants from countries that had been “disadvantaged” as consequence of a policy so heavily skewed toward family chain migration. The result has been that we choose 50,000 new Americans each year out of a hat. The only qualifications these lottery winners must posses is a passport from one the designated countries, a high school diploma or equivalent, some stationery and a postage stamp. Initially the visa lottery, which gave special advantages to applicants from Ireland, moved our nation a step backward in the direction of the old national origins quota system, a discredited policy that Kennedy himself had been instrumental in ending in 1965. While essentially unfair, the system at least favored people who tended to be well-educated and who had a command of English. With the remarkable resurgence of the Irish economy in the mid-1990s, demand for Irish immigration dropped precipitously, and increasingly, the lottery slots are being filled by the same sort of lower-skilled and less-educated people who dominate the family-based immigration flow. Once admitted to this country, visa lottery winners can then petition to bring their own extended relatives to this country through the family reunification process, thereby increasing family chain migration (the very phenomenon that led to the establishment of the lottery in the first place). At a time of heightened concern about national security, and extensive revelations about how the screening process failed to prevent terrorists from entering the United States, the visa lottery program has opened new immigration avenues for people from countries whose governments sponsor and shelter terrorist organizations. With little ability to conduct any sort of meaningful background check on applicants from countries whose governments cannot be relied upon to cooperate in weeding out potential terrorists, we roll the dice on national security each time we conduct one of these lotteries. One of the visa lottery winners was the wife of Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, the Egyptian national who attacked the El Al ticket counter in a terrorist attack at Los Angeles Airport on July 4, 2002. Based on the fact that her name was randomly drawn, Hadayet qualified to remain in the United States, in spite of the fact that he had been turned down for residency in this country (although he was also seeking relief under another immigration loophole). How many other terrorists, would-be terrorists, and assorted criminals have been granted permanent U.S. residence because they won a sweepstakes contest? Short of having Ed McMahon show up at the winners’ doors, the United States government is treating our immigration policy the way Publishers Clearinghouse promotes magazine sales. Even if there were no homeland security concerns at issue, is this really a rational way to select 50,000 new immigrants every year? In addition to ending inane and dangerous gimmicks like the visa lottery program, it is time for Congress to address the fundamental failures of our underlying immigration policy. It is time for Congress to set rational limits on the number of people we admit each year, establish objective criteria for selecting the people who settle here, and institute workable policies for enforcing our immigration laws. The system is even more broken than it was in 1990 when Congress concocted the lottery idea. The only remedy for an immigration system that nearly everyone agrees is failing to serve our national interests is real fundamental reform. That will require political courage, not political gimmicks. |
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