Examiner Bio US Unemployment up.
Diversity Visa Lottery continues
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
By Carl Braun
Examiner.com
Diversity Visa Lottery delivers 55,000 new residents yearly
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The August unemployment rate for the United States was 9.7%, the highest it has been since June of 1983. Despite all of these Americans out of work, the government still plans on allowing another 1million plus people to immigrate to the US this year. In addition to that, something called the Diversity Visa Lottery kicks off on October 2nd and runs until November 30. A record 17 million people are expected to apply.Mandated by Congress and administered by the Department of State, the Visa Lottery is exactly like it sounds. People from all over the world in countries supposedly under-represented in the United States throw their names into an electronic hat and with a little luck…voila!---they hit the visa jackpot. They can then step around those already waiting in line and get on the fastest plane, boat, train or canoe to their new home in the US.
The annual event makes visa’s (green cards) available to 55,000 people each year based on their country of origin and either a high school education OR two years of job experience. There are 33 countries (see the full list here) that qualify for “Visapalooza 2011.” Among them are North Korea, Israel, Japan, Afghanistan, Taiwan, Iran and Iraq. The lunacy of our government policies is almost unfathomable at times. Since when do we have a shortage of people from Taiwan for example or a need to let another North Korean in the US? I don’t believe they like us very much. I can understand Brunei or Bhutan (also on the list). I didn’t even know there was a country named Bhutan (it is in the Eastern Himalaya’s) and I can sort of get the logic behind giving someone from Maldives a break or two. But really…55,000 new immigrants with relatively no skills based solely on country of origin, race or ethnicity? This while nearly fifteen million Americans are out of work.
Even people who support the program call it racist.
The odds of having your name picked this year are about .003%. My cab driver in Las Vegas a few months back hit the lottery in 2008. He was from Lebanon. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. One minute he was unemployed in a refugee camp and the next he was a driving a cab with a cool new apartment in Vegas. Only in America.
Carl Braun is an analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute Group and he's logged 5,000-plus hours on the border. He has written several books including his most recent on Border Insecurity, “Above All Else”
. Contact Carl at Carl.Braun@BPAUX.org.
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