U.S. Plans Visa Lottery to Draw Diverse Immigrants
In an effort to make the flow of immigrants to the United States more diverse, the State Department announced a program today to randomly select 20,000 foreign applicants for U.S. immigration visas over the next two years.
The random selection program will be in addition to the existing immigration programs.
Under ground rules announced by the department, citizens from countries that use fewer than 5,000 immigration visas per year will be eligible to apply in March for visas.
Citizens of China and Taiwan, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guyana, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Ssouth Korea, Mexico, the Philippines and the United Kingdom will not be eligible because they are over-represented in the immigration flow to the United States. Citizens of all other foreign nations are eligible.
A computer program will randomly select 10,000 people to be given immigration visas in fiscal year 1990 and another 10,000 to be given visas in fiscal year 1991.
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