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editorial | green card lottery

Hope makes long lines

FOR MILLIONS of would-be Americans worldwide, the greatest lottery on the planet isn’t Powerball or the Irish sweepstakes, but the US government’s Diversity Visa Program — in which 50,000 green cards are issued each year basically by the luck of the draw. Congress enacted the program in 1990 to give residents of countries not usually represented in the immigration rolls a chance to qualify for US citizenship. For this “green card lottery,’’ as it is popularly known, as many as 15 million applicants register each year.

The odds of winning are tiny. Only one-third of 1 percent of applicants ultimately receive one of the coveted visas allowing them and their immediate families to live, work, and study in the United States. But for most of the world’s people, those narrow odds are the only lawful shot at the American dream they will ever have. Though roughly 1 million immigrants enter the United States legally each year, nearly all are sponsored either by relatives who are already US citizens or by US employers with a job waiting for them. For any aspiring American without such ties, getting an immigrant visa depends on winning this lottery.

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Illegal immigrants are commonly rebuked for not “waiting in line’’ to enter legally. Most of the time, the green-card lottery, with its daunting odds, is the only line. It’s easy for native-born Americans to take the great fortune of their US citizenship for granted, but for hopeful self-starters elsewhere, even the slimmest chance at becoming an American exerts a powerful magnetic attraction.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently on the extraordinary scenes in Ethiopia, where residents by the thousands wait at local post offices to apply during the 30-day entry period. At one postal branch in Addis Ababa, the green-card lottery application window is the busiest time of the year. “Everybody participates,’’ one postal clerk told the Journal. “Even I do.’’

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It has become popular lately, especially among Republicans, for political candidates to cast themselves as a bulwark against the immigrant influx. But those long lines in Ethiopia - and Ukraine and Fiji and Algeria — should remind us of something important: Those who yearn to be Americans are not a nuisance to be stopped or a hassle to be resisted, but a priceless asset.