After a boastful, giddy Muslim jihadist from Central Asia gleefully mowed down eight innocents with a rented truck in a Manhattan park on Tuesday, President Trump called for an end to the “diversity visa lottery” program that brought him to America.
“We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything” about the Muslim terrorist threat, the president said at a meeting of his cabinet yesterday.
“I am going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program … Diversity lottery. Sounds nice, it is not nice, it is not good. It hasn’t been good and we have been against it.”
Trump took to social media to fire a broadside at Democrats.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Charles Schumer beauty. I want merit based,” Trump tweeted Wednesday at 7:24 a.m. Six minutes later he followed up with, “We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York), who co-sponsored legislation establishing the visa lottery when he was a member of the House of Representatives, deflected in a typically whiny response.
“President Trump where is your leadership? The contrast between President Bush’s actions after 9/11 and President Trump’s actions this morning could not be starker,” Schumer said on the floor of the Senate.
The United States has been awarding green cards through random games of chance for 20 years.
Perhaps spinning a roulette wheel for Supreme Court appointments would ease partisan acrimony in Congress. Maybe the craps table is the logical place to find the nation’s next treasury secretary.
It is a fact that the U.S. Department of State has been distributing green cards through visa lotteries since at least 1987. The current Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program, was established by the Immigration Act of 1990, and took full effect in 1995. Like other applicants seeking permanent resident status, a DV applicant must meet national security-related and eligibility criteria to be issued a green card, which entitles the holder to live and work in the U.S. permanently. At a minimum, DV applicants must have a high school education and two years of work experience or work training within the previous five years, and pass an in-person interview.
Like other lawful permanent residents of the U.S., individuals admitted under the DV program are eligible to seek U.S. citizenship after a waiting period. Any permanent resident may voluntarily abandon this sought-after legal status by, for example, remaining outside the U.S. for a prolonged period of time, failing to file income tax returns while living outside the U.S., or declaring oneself a “nonimmigrant” on U.S. tax returns. Permanent resident status can be rescinded if the person concerned is found to have committed fraud in the immigration process or is convicted of a serious crime or crimes.
Up to 50,000 visas are issued under the DV program annually.
According to CNN:
Visas are awarded by random selection in select countries to promote immigration from places that don’t otherwise send many immigrants to the U.S. Roughly 1 million green cards are issued by the U.S. per year. In 2016, 45,664 diversity visas were issued. The vast majority of green cards are based on family connections, and other categories include employment-based visas and refugees or asylees.
One of the chief defenders of the DV program is the Congressional Black Caucus, which favors it because a lot of people come here from sub-Saharan Africa, explained Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. At one time, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) wanted to double the quota for the program to 100,000, he said.