The bill, H.R. 704, was approved recently on a 19-11 vote that was generally along party lines with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
The bill must still pass the full House, which is probable, but it is expected to die when it goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill, which was supported staunchly by Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, and sponsored by Rep. Bob Good-latte, Republican of Virginia, who chairs one of the subcommittees.
The committee press release announcing the action virtually equated being Iranian with being a terrorist. The release labeled the diversity visa program as “an open door for terrorists. Each year, diversity visas are issued to individuals from countries listed as State Sponsors of Terrorism. For the 2011 program, 1,842 Iranians, 553 Sudanese and 32 Syrians were issued diversity visas.”
The program was started in 1995 to provide immigration visas to 50,000 people a year who come from countries that are not providing large numbers of immigrants under other programs. So far, more than 785,000 such visas have been issued.
Chairman Smith said: “This diversity visa program is … an open invitation for fraud and a jackpot for terrorists. While a small number of people who play the lottery actually win the prize, most people lose. With the visa lottery, the American people lose since US immigration policy and national security are compromised.”
He did not say what kind of fraud he found in the lottery, whose winners are chosen by a State Department computer.
Goodlatte said: “The visa lottery program poses a national security threat. Under the program, each successful applicant is chosen at random and given the status of permanent resident based on pure luck. This flawed policy is just foolish in the age in which we live. Those in the world who wish us harm can easily engage in this statistical gamble with nothing to lose. Our immigration policy should be based primarily on our national needs, security and economics and not in part on an arbitrary system, lacking even minimal checks.”
Actually, lottery winners do not automatically get handed an immigrant visas. They must first go through all the checks and reviews that other visa applicants face and be found eligible under standard immigration law.
Last Thursday, a federal judge in Washington threw out a suit filed by some lottery applicants who sought to block the State Department from redoing the lottery draw this year after it found a major error. The depart-ment’s computer had pulled winning names only from the applicants who filed in the first few days of the lottery’s one-year filing window. The State Department had notified tens of thousands of “winners” before the error was discovered and the notifications canceled. Some of the “winners,” including Iranians went to court, but the judge dismissed their case.
The State Department pulled 100,000 new winners from the 15 million applicants and notified them Friday. The first 50,000 to pass muster will get immigrant visas.