It’s blamed for allowing the New York terrorist into the United States and President Trump, and even some Democrats, now want to eliminate the diversity visa lottery.
But just what is it, and where did it come from?
It dates back to Rep. Brian Donnelly, a Massachusetts Democrat, when he was miffed in the 1980s. The much-ballyhooed Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had eliminated the country quotas that favored Western European immigrants and replaced them with an immigration system based on family reunification and employment skills.
This led to an explosion in immigrants from Latin America and Asia but a sharp decline in immigrants from European countries such as Ireland, the land of Donnelly’s ancestors.
So Donnelly, with backing from other Irish-American congressmen, drafted a temporary measure to provide an alternative path to a green card for citizens of countries “adversely affected” by the 1965 immigration law, like Ireland.
The new program would award 10,000 special visas to people from these “adversely affected countries,” which the State Department would define as countries that had not used more than 25 percent of their 20,000-immigrants-per-country quota.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, a fellow Irish-American Democrat from Massachusetts, filed companion legislation in the Senate, and the measure passed in 1986.
Four years later, in 1990, Chuck Schumer, who was then a U.S. House member, introduced a bill that would transform this temporary program into a permanent one. The future Senate minority leader proposed making a set number of visas available each year to “diversity immigrants””from countries that did not have many nationals living in the United States.
Schumer’s measure was included in the larger Immigration Act of 1990, which increased overall immigration levels and also created five new employment-based visas. The Immigration Act of 1990 passed the House in a bipartisan vote of 231 to 192, and the companion Senate version passed by an overwhelming 89 to 8 margin. It was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush near the end of 1990.
That’s how the diversity visa lottery was born.
Under this program, the State Department offers 50,000 visas each year to immigrants from countries with otherwise low rates of immigration to the U.S. To qualify for a diversity visa, applicants must have a high school diploma or two years in an occupation that requires formal training. They do not need any special skills or a close family member living in the U.S.
Those who meet the minimal requirements are placed into a lottery, and a computer selects 50,000 winners out of the millions who apply each year. The lucky winners, if they can pass a State Department interview and FBI background check, are awarded a green card, making them legal permanent residents of the United States. They may apply for citizenship after five years, like other green card holders. They may also bring their spouses and minor children with them.
Although this program traces its origins to Rep. Donnelly’s attempt to admit more Irish immigrants, Irish and Italians lost interest in the lottery by the mid 1990s, when the formation of the European Union made it easier for them to move to any other European country if they wanted to flee their homeland. So rather than benefiting European immigrants, the lottery now primarily helps Africans, who make up about half of the winners. In fact, the diversity visa lottery has accounted for more than 30 percent of African immigration in recent years, according to Politico.
In 2016, Nepal, Egypt and Iran had the most recipients of diversity visas, according to The New York Times. Uzbekistan had the fifth most recipients last year.
Of course, one Uzbek national who emigrated to the U.S. on a diversity visa in 2010 was Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old who killed eight and injured 11 when he mowed down pedestrians and bikers with his rental truck in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Uzbekistan’s population is 88 percent Muslim, according to the CIA World Factbook. The Central Asian country has become a fertile recruiting ground for ISIS in the past few years, with its homegrown terror group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) pledging allegiance to ISIS in 2014.
In order to entice Uzbek fighters to join their ranks, ISIS established “Istok,” a Russian language magazine aimed at Central Asians and highlighting residents of the region who have already joined the terror group. They are also using Russian language social media to expand their base of support in the region, as well as sending recruiters to poor and underdeveloped areas.
According to CNN, “[R]ecruitment through encrypted messaging and the dark web is ongoing and in fact increasing, particularly amongst Uzbeks based in Europe and potentially North America too.”
Uzbekistan’s authoritarian regime has not helped the country’s terror recruitment problem. The government’s brutally repressive tactics have angered many young Uzbeks into joining ISIS or the IMU. An estimated 1,500 Uzbeks have traveled to Iraq or Syria to join ISIS, according to an October report from The Soufan Center.
In fact, Uzbek nationals either inspired by, directed by or affiliated with ISIS have carried out four deadly terrorist attacks in the West in the past 16 months. One Uzbek was among the three jihadists who killed 45 people and injured 230 at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul in June 2016. On January 1, an Uzbek citizen killed 39 and injured 70 at an Istanbul nightclub where hundreds of people were celebrating the New Year.
In April, an Uzbek national and failed asylum seeker killed four people by running them over with a truck in Stockholm. Then came Saipov’s truck attack on Halloween in New York City.
Saipov’s first name, Sayfullo, translates to “Sword of Allah” in English. And Saipov did indeed carry out his attack in the name of Allah, shouting “Allahu akbar” after he smashed the truck into a school bus. He also pledged allegiance to ISIS; investigators discovered notes proclaiming things like “ISIS will endure.”
Yet despite his name, his prime military age and his country of origin, Saipov was welcomed to the United States on a diversity visa, and New York City paid the price in another Islamic terror attack.
This was the very type of attack WND news editor Leo Hohmann warned about in his book “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and the Resettlement Jihad,” which was published in January. The “stealth invasion” to which he refers is the immigration of Muslims to America for the purpose of planting their ideology on American soil and eventually subverting the country.
“Once these young Muslim men arrive on our soil as immigrants, it is too late,” Hohmann said. “The damage has already been done. If they weren’t already ‘radical’ when they arrived, the odds are not in our favor that they will remain peaceful. Not when we have our cities loaded up with radical mosques, not when we have the Muslim Brotherhood doing business as CAIR ready to defend their ‘civil rights’ to practice a faith that calls for a smorgasbord of anti-American activity, including adherence to a foreign system of law that sanctions honor violence against women, female genital mutilation, violence against gays, polygamy, child marriage and a sense of supremacy over all other religious faiths.”
Hohmann pointed out the 9/11 attacks had many of the same overtones as Saipov’s truck attack: young Muslims migrated to the U.S., attended radical mosques, and used American freedom and resources to methodically plan a deadly attack on New York, the largest and most iconic American city. He said 9/11 should have caused America to reexamine its commitment to diversity and “diversity visas,” but sadly our politicians did not get the wake-up call.
“Instead of focusing on profiling the enemy – young male Muslims from overseas – we doubled down on diversity and opened up our various ill-advised immigration programs even more,” Hohmann said. “In short, we listened to CAIR and the other Brotherhood front groups who warned us not to violate the civil rights of the Muslim community, its mosques, imams and followers. Our federal government empowered the Muslim Brotherhood, invited them into the halls of Congress, the White House [Iftar dinners, etc.] and many state legislatures. It became a case of the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.”
Hohmann emphasized this is not a problem that was created solely by Barack Obama or the Democrats. Rather, powerful elites in both parties have invested in the open borders/diversity agenda. After all, open borders provide votes for the Democrats and cheap corporate labor for the Republicans.
“While the talking points for diversity come mainly from the Democrats, don’t be fooled,” he warned. “The GOP leadership – Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, John McCain, Lindsey Graham – love these programs and will fight behind the scenes to save them while sounding in public like they don’t like them.”
Not only have various immigration programs, such as the diversity visa lottery, made it easier for Muslims to carry out their stealth invasion, but one foundational American value is aiding them too, in Hohmann’s view.
“I would argue that our American system of freedom of religion under the First Amendment is tailor-made for Islamic civilizational jihad – which aims to take over by upsetting the demographic apple cart and waging lawfare in the courts,” Hohmann declared. “Because once the Muslim migrant arrives, he is a protected minority whose views, no matter how aberrant we may find them, are considered part of his religion. Hands off. Of all the countries on earth that should be concerned about Islamic immigration, it should be America.”
