What you need to know about the lottery on the draw of green cards

US President Donald Trump announced his desire to cancel the annual lottery on drawing green cards among representatives of countries with low immigration to the United States.

Фото: Depositphotos

Edition The Hill told about the essence of this lottery and what its cancellation may mean.

Every year during the lottery, the United States receives from 10 to 20 millions of applications from residents of different countries of the world who want to move to the States. From these applications, 100 000 applicants are randomly selected, who have a chance to get one of the 50 000 green cards annually allocated by the State Department for the lottery.

People who win green cards during a lottery, before receiving this document, pass the same checks as immigrants applying for work or student visas in the United States.

Applicants can apply for participation in the lottery, being in their home country, staying in the United States on a different visa or legally in any country in the world.

The number of applications varies greatly from country to country, but the selection process is completely random.

For example, in 2014, citizens of Uzbekistan submitted 1 applications for a green card. Of these, 196 were selected in the first stage of the lottery, and 657 received visas and the right to immigrate to the United States.

From 2013 to 2015, the leaders in the number of applications for participation in the lottery were Nigeria, Ghana, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Iran - citizens of these countries submitted about a third of all applications for the green card lottery during the specified period. Beginning in 2015, Nigeria was excluded from the lottery's list of participants because more than 50 Nigerians had emigrated to the United States in the previous five years.

People born in countries from which a large number of migrants travel to the US (Mexico and China) are not allowed to participate in the lottery.

According to Trump, as part of the draws of the country's green cards, “they send their worst people to the USA”. As an example, he cited the terrorist attacks in New York in October 2017, when a native of Uzbekistan, Saifullo Saipov, who got to the USA after winning a green card, crushed eight people with a truck.

But the program is important for African-American members of Congress who view this lottery as the only way for African immigrants to move to the United States.

Proponents claim this program claims that the vast majority of winners coming to the country benefit the American economy and society.

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