Safe Passage Project applauds the recent article co-authored by Austin T. Fragomen, Jr. and Safe Passage Project’s Vice President of the Board, Careen Shannon, taking on the recently hot topic of the diversity visa and the small yet unique role it plays in our immigration system. Both are partners at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen and Loewy, LLP, seasoned immigration attorneys, and members of the Safe Passage Project community. See below for an excerpt of the article, and read the full piece here.

Supporting “America First” Through Diversity in Immigration
A small, largely overlooked source of immigrants to the United States—the diversity visa (DV) lottery program—has unexpectedly been in the news in recent months. After a 2017 terrorist attack in New York City on Halloween was attributed to an Uzbek national who had immigrated to the United States in 2010 after being selected in the DV lottery, President Donald J. Trump called for an end to that program. A second, unsuccessful terrorist incident in New York in December 2017 was attributed to a person who came to the United States through “chain migration,” stemming from a relative who had immigrated thanks to the visa lottery program.

In January 2018, President Trump reiterated his desire to terminate the DV lottery. Along with construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Mr. Trump said that eliminating the program would be a precondition for signing legislation to protect the young people who had been shielded from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

A lottery is probably a crazy way to run an immigration program. But dismissing the virtues of diversity in immigration is short-sighted and could have harmful long-term effects on America’s competitive position in the global economy.

Read the full article here.