Two questions dominating the immigration debate for decades can be summed up as: who should America allow in, and how many should come? There are unlimited answers to these two questions, but the most unreasonable and irresponsible response would be for our government to leave it up to random chance.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what Congress did through the creation of the Diversity Visa Lottery, putting our nation’s population growth at the service of a random lottery allocation. With the Trump administration’s mandate to restore American interests as the primary focus of immigration policy, we have a significant opportunity to reverse course.
For years, the Diversity Visa Lottery has worked by randomly selecting applicants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. The list of low rate countries changes year-to-year and is based on whether or not the country has had 50,000 natives immigrate to the United States in the past five years.
Other than being a native of a low immigration country, the qualifications are minimal with the applicant required to only have a high school diploma (or equivalent) or two years of work experience. We do not even charge a registration fee for the chance at permanent U.S. residence. Each applicant has an equal opportunity at the 50,000 green cards available in the lottery process as there is no weighing of applicants based on skill, threat level, ties to the country, employment prospects, or any other sensible criteria.
This system completely fails to prioritize the best and brightest entrants – and Americans are left paying the price.
In 2005, the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General warned that the visa lottery “contains significant threats to national security as hostile intelligence officers, criminals, and terrorists attempt to use it to enter the United States as permanent residents.” In 2013, the Inspector General recorded with alarm that the visa lottery was subject to “pervasive and sophisticated fraud” perpetrated by “organized fraud rings.”
We have also had terrorists win the lottery and reward the United States by coming to terrorize citizens. This includes Sayfullo Saipov, a national of Uzbekistan, who entered in 2010 and was arrested seven years later after using a truck to run down numerous pedestrians on a bike lane on the west side of Manhattan, killing eight individuals.
It also includes Hesham Mohamed Ali Hedayet from Egypt, who was able to claim Lawful Permanent Resident status through a family member who received their status via visa lottery in 1997. In July 2002, Hedayet opened fire at the El Al Airlines ticket counter at LAX airport, murdering two ticket agents and wounding three others. It also includes Abdurasaul Hasanovich Juraboev, a national of Uzbekistan, who was admitted to the United States as a visa lottery recipient in 2011. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to support ISIS, and in 2017 was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Winners of the Diversity Visa Lottery can also bring their families, and once naturalized, they can sponsor other family members through what is commonly referred to as chain migration. So, the random reward of permanent residence, if granted by mistake, has the potential to compound exponentially. It is also decidedly undemocratic because it delegates the power to choose who can immigrate to the United States away from the elected government to recent immigrants.
In this sense, the chain migration occurring is the legal equivalent of birthright citizenship policy that allows aliens in the country to bestow citizenship unilaterally on progeny. When combined, you see many new citizens over the past few decades have been made outside the scope and scrutiny of the government. Other aliens or random chance determine new citizenship more than U.S. law.
It is untenable for a country to run an immigration system in such a manner. President Donald Trump has long identified the security vulnerabilities and the illogic of outsourcing our immigration decisions to random chance and the applicants themselves.
BECOMING AN AMERICAN: HOW TO FIX THE LEGAL IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
That is why we attempted to end random lottery allocation of H-1B visas during the first Trump administration. That is why the president has rightly called to end the Diversity Visa Lottery, chain migration, and birthright citizenship. We cannot have an immigration policy by, of, and for the people that is governed by random chance and foreign preference.
End the Diversity Visa Lottery, and prioritize immigration based on the needs of Americans.
Chad F. Wolf serves as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chair of Homeland Security policy at the America First Policy Institute. He previously served as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security during the first Trump Administration.