Let us shift our attention from the H-1B visa system’s dragging case and the diversity visa lottery program. Trump’s visa rules are not only affecting Indian techies but also African nationals because that’s their livelihood. For Indian techies, getting an H-1B visa is all about living the American dream, but it is about earning their bread and butter for many African nationals.
If Trump cancels the US visa lottery system, citizens of Congo, Egypt, and Ethiopia will be affected the most. Around 2,000 from each of these countries win the visa lottery system. In 2016, 2,855 from Egypt, 2,778 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 2,143 from Ethiopia went to the US via the lottery program. Around 1,000 citizens from Sudan, Cameroon, Liberia, Kenya, Morocco, and Algeria manage to win the visa lottery program.
Africa also tops the continent’s rank for winning most of the visas through the lottery program. Africa topped the list with 20,706 in 2016, Europe at 15,207, and America, Oceania, and North America with 8,898. At the beginning of November, US President Donald Trump announced that he had told Congress to terminate the Diversity Visa Lottery Program and make it merit-based. Trump took this decision because of the truck terror attack executed by an Uzbekistan youth. He had come to the US through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program.
What is the Diversity Visa Lottery Program?
This visa program is completely lottery-based. The program is very vulnerable because you don’t know who enters the country through the annual lottery. Every year 50,000 people are selected from a list of countries to get the US green card through the diversity program. It is distributed among six geographical locations. According to the program’s rules, no country gets more than seven percent of visas out of the total.
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