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DEAR FRIENDS!

PROTECT GREEN CARD LOTTERY!

It depends on you what will happen to the Diversity Visa Lottery, also known as "green card lottery", in the future. Within the time of its existence the lottery has made it possible for thousands of people to become self-made legal immigrants and realize their American dream. "The Diversity Visa Program does what it was intended to do; it diversifies immigration to the United States. I believe very strongly that this is a benefit to the United States." (The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims; June 15, 2005)

Defining "Legal Permanent Resident"

A legal permanent resident (LPR) is a foreign national who has been granted lawful permanent residence in the United States. LPRs, more commonly known as "green card" recipients, are authorized to live and work permanently in the United States.

The immigration laws of the U.S. government give high priority for LPR status to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Preference categories with annual limits are used to designate other priority groups for LPR status. These include: 1) family-sponsored preferences - sponsored by certain family members, annual limit of 226,000 to 480,000; 2) employment-based preferences - sponsored by employers, annual limit of 140,000 plus unused family-sponsored preferences in the previous year; and 3) diversity - nationals of countries with low rates of immigration to the United States, annual limit of 50,000. Other major categories of foreign nationals who may be eligible

Diversity LPRs

The term "diversity LPRs" refers to LPR principals and their dependents whose legal permanent resident status is based on selection from a Diversity Lottery.

The annual Diversity Visa Lottery takes place since 1994. In accordance with its regulations 50000 immigrant visas are annually received by those lucky people who won the lottery and meet the simple but strict criteria:

• they must have minimum secondary education or 2-years service in a profession that requires a quite high qualification;
• they must be born in a country with a relatively low level of immigration to the U.S.;

These two rules help create a small flow of immigrants (no more than 7 % of the total number of legal immigrants) that is distinguished by its quality in the respect of the education and qualification of people which can diversify the population of the U.S. and prevent a strongly marked uneven balance of immigrants from certain countries. (The natives of Canada, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom and Vietnam can no longer participate in the lottery).

After the lottery chose its winners those of them who really intend to immigrate to the United States are supposed to go through the usual procedure of obtaining immigrant visas (there are no privileges designated for the winners of the lottery). They all must attend a clinic for a physical examination, go to the U.S. embassy for an interview, prove their sufficient financial means for getting settled in a new environment and they also must be taken their fingerprints. Sometimes visa applicants are to be subjected to additional examination procedures. Once all regulations are successfully observed, applicants are issued immigrants visas.

A great program, isn't it? Yes, it is great! And for ten years nobody has ever had a reason to reproach it with anything. The program is working perfectly and settling all the questions it has:

• thanks to it the amount of illegal immigrants is constantly decreasing, for the reason people believe in a chance and find it better to return back home after their non-immigrant visas expire and participate in the lottery than stay in the United States illegally.
• the majority of diversity Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) is from Europe and Africa, while most family-sponsored and employment-based LPRs originate in Asia and Central/South America (including Mexico). The program, designed to bring greater racial and ethnic diversity to the United States, offers permanent residency visas to citizens of nations which have a traditionally low level of immigration to the United States.
• the lottery is absolutely unique and makes America very special. There are 6 million people annually participating in the lottery. This amount is a clear proof of the U.S. attractiveness as a country for legal immigration. How can those people who ecstatically praise the United States be deprived of their the only one hope to come to the country they idealize?

Unfortunately there are some senseless measures recently taken to abolish the Visa Lottery. Probably they were taken by somebody who wished to close the U.S. borders, abrogate all visa categories and stop the flow of new immigrants. This is a veiled sabotage of the American progress and prosperity in the future! Instead of developing more efficient methods of verifying the information during issuing any type of visas and instead of intensifying the control over illegal immigration (there are annually millions of illegal immigrants!) these know-best-people propose to create obstacles to one of the best immigrant flows. But we are sensible people who can correctly evaluate the initiatives of these insane individuals and say "Yes" to the lottery, aren't we?

How the lottery opponents lie

Let's finally refute the arguments of the lottery opponents!

Lie ? 1: The lottery makes it easy for a terrorist to enter the territory of the United States.

Even if we imagine a terrorist who plans his actions relying on the probability of the lottery winning that makes up only 1 % then why don't the lottery opponents mention a great amount of the easier and more reliable ways of coming to the United States? Why do they forget that terrorists can also be given student or tourist visas because when applying for these visa types they will be subjected to rather superficial inspections? The lottery winning does not necessarily guarantee an immigrant visa; it only gives the chance to apply for it! Other visa categories can be applied for by anyone! The terrorist group of September 11th managed to come to the United States not using the "green card lottery".

The liars say that the residents of the terrorist-sponsoring countries get disproportionately many visas upon the Diversity Visa Lottery. Let's check for instance DV- 2004 (for the time being this is the last program provided with finished and already published statistics).

Statistics for DV-2004:

Cuba - 287 visas (including family members) for 674 winners.
North Korea - 0 visas (including family members) for 4 winners.
Iran - 276 visas (including family members) for 1431 winners.
Sudan - 272 visas (including family members) for 1183 winners.
Lybia - 16 visas (including family members) for 24 winners.
Syria - 64 winners, information about visas issued is not available.

Total: 915 visas from 50000 quota (less than 2%).

The numbers drawn from the following links:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/21864.htm
http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2004/table9.xls

I believe you have never seen these numbers; for one thing, nobody has ever studied this problem. The liars say that despite of the small population of these countries their citizens are issued too many "green card lottery" visas. You should take into account that the total population number of the 6 countries is 11.3 ml + 22.9 ml + 68 ml + 40.1 ml + 5.7 ml + 18,4 ml = 166 million people. The world population number is 6.5 billion people, whereas the amount of people allowed to participate in the lottery is 3.5 billions (since such big countries as China and India no longer participate in the lottery). Thus, compared to 166 millions (4.7 % of the world population number) 915 visas are just nothing. They make up only 2 % of 50000. The population numbers drawn from www.cia.gov

Now you've seen the real numbers and can check the above information. There is no disproportion. People from terrorist-sponsoring countries are given two times less "green card lottery" visas than people from other countries.

Lie ? 2: The lottery is not fair, because some people apply for it several times and the duplicates of the entries are not checked by the system.

Those who tell this rubbish may be not informed that the lottery applications are accepted not in the form of paper documents but by a computer system allowing to detect the duplicates already while accepting the applications. This system was developed by Kentucky Consular Center and how mean it is now to question the proficiency of these highly qualified authorities!

Anti-fraud technology used for the 2006 lottery detected 31,334 duplicate applications, and an additional 5,221 fraudulent entries were eliminated through the use of facial recognition and knowledge discovery software (http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2005/Feb/11-583659.html)

Lie ? 3: There are mostly uneducated persons without any professional experience who come to the United States through the visa lottery.

The lottery regulations set firmly forth the main principle that only the applicants who have minimum secondary education or 2-years experience in their profession can participate in the lottery and be issued a visa.

In fiscal year 2003, the "typical" principal applicant issued a diversity visa was a male professional, aged 26-30, holding a university degree. (FY-2003 Diversity Visa Statistical and Trend Analysis)

The three most common occupational categories listed for principal applicants accounted for 45.6% of those reporting an occupation: 18.2% reported Executive/Administrative/Managerial occupations, 14.5% reported Service occupations, and 12.9% reported they were students. Other significant occupational categories were Teachers, except Postsecondary, Admin Support including Clerks, Operators/Fabricators/Laborers, Sales, Technologists/Technicians and Engineer, Surveyor/Map, Science.

About 40% of the principal applicants reported having received a college/university or advanced degree. 16% of principal applicants reported having some college education, 18% a high school diploma, 7 % some high school, and 19% reported having attended vocational school. In Asia and Europe, the number who had completed a college or university degree was significantly higher than the average (57.5% of Asians and 49% of Europeans).

What we can do to save the Lottery

Thus, after the careful checking of the above information is clear that all 3 arguments often stated by the "green card lottery" opponents are a lie. Now you know the truth!

Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the Senate! Tell your Senators to reject the House's enforcement-only approach!

The following links will help you try to save the lottery. Use the information from this article and in the articles below and contact your senator (phone calls are most effective)!

http://capwiz.com/aila2/issues/alert/?alertid=8339741&type=CU
http://www.hispanicvista.com/HVC/Opinion/Guest_Columns/122705Cguest.htm
http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/22833leg20051213.html
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/immigration/details.cfm?id=38689
http://www.thelatinocoalition.com/news/pdf/HR4437.pdf
http://www.asianpages.com/immigration/immigration.html
http://www.advancingequality.org/dcm.asp?id=218
http://www.nnirr.org/registrations/HR4437.htm
http://ga3.org/campaign/asylum

If you want to find out more about how the Diversity Visa Lottery contributes to U.S. good, read below:

DIVERSITY VISA PROGRAM HEARING

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS

OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BRUCE A. MORRISON, CHAIRMAN, MORRISON PUBLIC AFFAIRS GROUP, FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HOWARD J. KRONGARD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY, AND CLAIMS