The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
Released: 2019-10-15T00:00:00

Background

Family reunification and the admission of immigrants with needed skills are two of the major principles underlying U.S. immigration policy. As a result, current law weights the allocation of immigrant visas heavily toward individuals with close family in the United States and, to a lesser extent, toward individuals who meet particular employment needs. The diversity immigrant category was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by the Immigration Act of 1990 ( P.L. 101-649 ) to stimulate "new seed" immigration (i.e., to foster new, more varied migration from other parts of the world). Diversity visas are allocated to natives of countries from which the combination of immediate relatives, family preference, and employment preference immigrant admissions were lower than a total of 50,000 over the preceding five years combined.

Legislative Origins

The Immigration Amendments of 1965 replaced the national origins quota system, which prioritized European source countries, with equally distributed per-country ceilings. In the 1980s, some Members of Congress began expressing concern that U.S. legal immigration admissions were skewed in favor of immigrants from Asia and Latin America because of the 1965 amendments. The first legislative response to this concern occurred in Section 314 of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which allowed an extra 5,000 immigrant visas per year for FY1987 and FY1988 to be distributed to natives of 36 countries that had been adversely affected by the 1965 changes to the INA. Over 1 million people applied for what was then called the NP-5 program, and visas were made available according to the chronological order in which qualified applications were mailed to the State Department (DOS). Natives of Ireland received the largest proportion (31%) of the NP-5 visas, followed by natives of Canada (21%) and Great Britain (11%). In 1988, Congress extended the NP-5 program for two more years and made 15,000 additional immigrant visas available each year in FY1989 and FY1990.

What is now known as the diversity immigrant category was added to the INA by P.L. 101-649 and went fully into effect in FY1995. Section 132 of P.L. 101-649 provided 40,000 visas per year for a transitional program during FY1992-FY1994 for certain natives of foreign states that were adversely affected by the 1965 changes to the INA. At least 40% of these visas were earmarked for natives of Ireland. The current diversity visa category had an annual allocation of 55,000 visas when it went into effect in FY1995.

While the diversity visa category has not been directly amended since its enactment, P.L. 105-100 , the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA), temporarily decreased the 55,000 annual ceiling to 50,000. Beginning in FY2000, the 55,000 ceiling has been reduced by 5,000 annually to offset immigrant visas made available to certain unsuccessful asylum seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala, and formerly communist countries in Europe who are being granted immigrant status under special rules established by NACARA. The 5,000 offset is temporary, but it is not clear how many years it will be in effect to handle these adjustments of status.

Eligibility Criteria and Application Process

To be eligible for a diversity visa, the INA requires that a foreign national must have at least a high school education or the equivalent, or two years of experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience. The applicant or the applicant's spouse must be a native of one of the countries listed as a foreign state qualified for the DV program. Minor children of the qualifying diversity immigrant, as well as the spouse, may accompany as lawful permanent residents (LPRs) and are counted toward the 50,000 annual limit.

Because the demand for diversity visas is much higher than the supply, a lottery is used to randomly select who may apply for one of the 50,000 diversity visas available annually. (See Figure 1 for an illustration of the process). There is no fee to enter the diversity lottery. Registration for the FY2020 diversity lottery began on October 3, 2018, and closed on November 6, 2018. Beginning on May 7, 2019, and continuing through September 30, 2020, those who registered can use an online system to find out if they had been selected. The FY2018 lottery had 14.7 million entries, representing over 23 million people (including family members). From the millions of entries, approximately 100,000 selectees are randomly chosen. Being chosen as a selectee ("lottery winner") does not guarantee receipt of a diversity visa; rather, it identifies those who are eligible to apply for one. To receive a visa, selectees must successfully complete the application process (including security and medical screenings and in-person interviews) by the end of the fiscal year for which they registered for the lottery or they lose their eligibility.

DV applicants, like all other foreign nationals applying to come to the United States, must pay applicable fees and undergo reviews and biometric background checks performed by DOS consular officers abroad and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration officers upon entry to the United States. Individuals selected for a diversity visa who are residing in the United States as nonimmigrants must undergo reviews by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) prior to adjusting to LPR status. These reviews, which include an in-person interview, are intended to ensure that the applicants are not inadmissible under the grounds spelled out in Section 212(a) of the INA. Grounds for inadmissibility include health, criminal history, security and terrorist concerns, public charge, illegal entry, and previous removal.

Trends in Source Regions and Countries

The diversity immigrant visa program currently makes 50,000 visas available annually to natives of countries from which immigrant admissions were lower than a total of 50,000 over the preceding five years. USCIS implements a formula for allocating visas according to statutory specifications: visas are divided among six global geographic regions, and each region and country is identified as either high admission or low admission based on how many immigrant visas each received over the previous five-year period. Higher proportions of diversity visas are allocated to low-admission regions and low-admission countries. Each country is limited to 7%, or 3,500, of the total, and the INA provides that Northern Ireland be treated as a separate foreign state.

The distribution of diversity visas by global region of origin has shifted over time (see Figure 2 ). From FY1995 through FY2001, foreign nationals from Europe garnered a plurality of diversity visas, ranging from 38% to 47% of the total. In the early 2000s, the share of DV recipients from Africa was on par with those from Europe. Europe's share dropped by nine percentage points from FY2005 to FY2006 as the shares from African and Asian countries continued to increase. Since FY2008, Europe has accounted for smaller shares than Africa or Asia. Latin America (which includes South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean), Oceania, and North America accounted for less than 8% each year. In total, from FY1995 through FY2017 immigrants from Africa accounted for 40% of diversity immigrants, while Europeans accounted for 31% and Asians for 25%. These trends are consistent with the statutory formula Congress outlined to allocate diversity visas.

Figure 3 presents the countries from which at least 1,000 DV immigrants were admitted in the first five years that the program was in full effect (FY1995-FY1999) and the most recent five years for which data are available (FY2013-FY2017). Early in the program, most of the top countries were in Europe (particularly Eastern Europe) and Africa. In more recent years, there has been a shift toward Africa and Asia. Certain countriesâsuch as Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Egyptârank high across many years of the program, while othersâsuch as Ireland, Poland, and Venezuelaâare limited to particular periods of time. From FY1995-FY2017, natives of six countries received at least 40,000 diversity visas in total: Ethiopia (67,832), Nigeria (58,563), Egypt (56,862), Ukraine (52,654), Albania (47,136), and Bangladesh (40,847).

Characteristics of Diversity Immigrants

Regions of Birth

As one would expect, diversity immigrants come from different parts of the world that differ from the leading immigrant-sending regions. Department of Homeland Security data ( Figure 4 ) reveal that Africa accounted for 43% of diversity immigrants admitted in FY2017, but 11% of all LPRs admitted that fiscal year. Europeans made up 7% of all LPRs admitted in FY2017, but 22% of diversity immigrants. In contrast, Latin America (Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America) was the sending region for 43% of all LPRs admitted in FY2017, but provided 4% of the diversity immigrants during that fiscal year. North America (excluding Mexico) and Oceania account for a small percentage of LPRs admitted by any means.

The distribution of LPR admissions and DV admissions from Asia illustrates the impact of the two-step visa allocation formula, which considers both regional and national admissions levels. Asia includes many top-sending countriesâsuch as China, India, and the Philippinesâfor family- and employment-based LPRs, making it a high-admission region. Yet it also includes low-admission countriesâsuch as Nepal, Iran, and Uzbekistanâthat rank high for their number of diversity visas. As a result, as Figure 4 illustrates, in FY2017 foreign nationals from Asia represented a somewhat more equivalent share of the 1.1 million LPRs (38%) in relation to their share (30%) of diversity LPRs in contrast to the other world regions.

Age and Sex

Diversity immigrants are, on average, younger than other LPRs. Department of Homeland Security data (see Figure 5 ) reveal that DV immigrants are more likely to be working-age adults and their children, and less likely to be over the age of 40 than LPRs overall. Also, the foreign-born population of the United States is more likely to be in the prime working-age group (i.e., ages 25 to 64) than the native-born population, and diversity immigrants have a younger age distribution than the foreign-born population as a whole. In addition, 56% of diversity immigrants in FY2017 were male compared to 46% of all LPRs.

Marital Status

Diversity immigrants were less likely to be married than LPRs generally (47% versus 58%) in FY2017, perhaps a function of their relative youth. Over half (52%) of diversity immigrants were single, in contrast to 36% of LPRs overall. Few of either group were likely to be widowed, divorced, or separated.

Educational Attainment and Labor Market Characteristics

Recent critics of the diversity immigrant visa have argued against the program on the grounds that individuals do not need high levels of education or work experience to qualify for the DV program and that the U.S. admissions system should prioritize "high-skilled" immigrants. Neither DHS nor DOS publish data on the educational attainment of DV immigrants, but other sources provide some information. According to now-dated data from the New Immigrant Survey, a widely cited, nationally representative, longitudinal study of individuals who obtained LPR status in 2003, those who entered as principals via the diversity visa category had, on average, 14.5 years of schooling when they entered the United States, which was higher than those who were admitted on family-based visas as spouses or siblings of U.S. citizens (13.0 and 11.5 years, respectively), but lower than those who were admitted as principal employment-based immigrants (15.6 years). Similarly, DV immigrants were more likely to be fluent in English than most family-based immigrants (except for immigrant spouses of native-born U.S. citizens), but less likely than employment-based immigrants to be fluent in English. Using the same data source, the Migration Policy Institute found that 50% of DV immigrants who entered in 2003 had a college degree (32% with a bachelor's and 18% with a graduate degree). It is likely that the educational attainment of recent DV immigrants is higher than it was for those represented in the New Immigrant Survey, given that more recently arrived immigrants have higher levels of education overall than their predecessors.

Government data on other labor market characteristics of DV immigrants are also limited. According to the New Immigrant Survey, DV immigrants who entered in 2003 had higher initial unemployment rates than employment-based immigrants and those who immigrated as spouses of U.S. citizens, but lower unemployment rates than those who immigrated as siblings of U.S. citizens. Four to six years after U.S. entry, however, DV immigrants' unemployment rates had dropped significantly and were similar to those of all other groups except employment-based principals (who had the lowest rates at both initial entry and four to six years later). DV immigrants' hourly earnings were similarly situated between that of employment-based immigrant category (which had the highest earnings) and that of the sibling category (which had the lowest). Among male immigrants earning wages, those who entered on diversity visas had the highest percentage growth in real hourly wages between initial entry and re-sampling four to six years later.

Impact of the DV Program on Immigrant Diversity

Given its name and the discourse about "new seed" immigrants that preceded the creation of the diversity visa, the question arises whether the DV program has led to an increase in the diversity of immigrant flows to the United States. Leading up to and since its enactment, some observers have noted that, regardless of its name, the DV program was intended to benefit Irish and Italian constituents who had been negatively affected by the Immigration Act of 1965 that resulted in an increase in immigration from Asia and Latin America. During the transition period after the program was created (FY1992-FY1994), at least 40% of diversity visas were earmarked for Irish immigrants, and 92% of diversity visas in FY1994 went to Europeans. Since its full implementation in FY1995, however, immigrants from a wider range of countries and regions have entered via the program (see " Regions of Birth " above).

The DV program's small size relative to total annual immigrant admissions (DV admissions make up about 5% of annual LPR admissions) limits its impact on the make-up of the immigrant population. Former Representative Bruce Morrison, who helped create the program, stated in a 2005 hearing that it was not Congress's intent to diversify the immigrant flow as a whole ("It could not have possibly done so at the 50,000 number"), but rather to add a new pathway for those who would not be able to enter under the family- or employment-based systems. By that standard, the program arguably fulfills its objectives, having admitted more than 1 million immigrants from under-represented countries since FY1995 (see Figure 3 ).

Another way to assess the program's impact is to analyze the diversity of annual LPR flows before and after the DV program was established. Using a measure of diversity called the entropy index, CRS found that in FY1990, before the DV program was in effect, the diversity of LPR admissions was 0.52. In every year from FY1995 (when the DV program went into full effect) through FY2017 (the most recent data available), the diversity of annual LPR admissions was higher than in 1990, ranging from 0.67 to 0.72. In each of those years, the diversity of LPR admissions not including the DV admissions was lower than it was with DV admissions included (see the Appendix ), indicating that the admission of DV immigrants does increase the diversity of annual LPR admissions.

A full analysis of the impacts of the DV program on admission numbers would also take into account individuals whom DV immigrants subsequently sponsor through the family-based admissions system. Because administrative data on immigrant admissions do not specify these linkages, this type of direct analysis is not currently possible. However, admissions data suggest that, at least for Africans, the DV has led to an increase in immigration via the family-based system (particularly immediate relatives). From 1992 to 2007, admissions of Africans based on family sponsorship grew faster than other categories of admissions for Africans, including diversity, which remained fairly stable over the time period. The DV seems to have diversified the African flow itself by boosting emigration from non-English speaking African countries (whereas English-speaking African countries have longer histories of U.S. immigration and are therefore more likely to be the source of sponsoring immigrant family members).

Selected Legislative Action

Legislation related to the Diversity Immigrant Visa has focused largely on eliminating the program. Bills to eliminate the diversity visa category have been introduced in nearly every Congress since the program was created and have passed one chamber on more than one occasion. Most recently, S. 744 in the 113 th Congress, a comprehensive immigration reform bill that the Senate passed in 2013 by a vote of 68 to 32, would have eliminated the program. Other bills introduced in the past would have raised the annual limit of diversity visas or temporarily re-allocated diversity visas for other purposes. In the 116 th Congress, several bills to eliminate the DV program have been introduced, including H.R. 479 , H.R. 2278 , S. 1103 , and S. 1632 . In contrast, H.R. 3799 would raise the annual diversity visa allocation to 80,000.

Selected Policy Questions

As Congress weighs whether to eliminate or revise the diversity visa category, it may want to consider various policy questions pertinent to this discussion.

Is it fair to have the diversity visa category when there are family members and prospective employees who have been waiting for years for visas to become available?

Given the 3.7 million approved family-based and employment-based petitions waiting for a visa to become available at the close of FY2018, some argue that the 50,000 diversity visas should be used for backlog reduction in these visa categories. Others might observe that the family-based, employment-based, and diversity visa categories are statutorily designed as independent pathways to LPR status and that the problems of the family-based and employment-based backlogs should be addressed separately. Some also argue that the DV program increases fairness in the immigration system by making visas available to individuals who would not otherwise have a chance of obtaining one and by discouraging illegal immigration through expanding access to the legal immigration system.

Should the United States base admissions decisions on nationality?

Some argue that the diversity visa program reverts to discriminatory national origin quotas, which Congress eliminated through the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, there are other examples of admissions policies that effectively discriminate based on nationality (e.g., H-2A, H-2B, E, and TN nonimmigrant visas, the Visa Waiver Program, and the per country caps on family- and employment-based LPR admissions, all of which limit admissions by nationality). Some also argue that admissions decisions should be based on higher levels of education, job experience, and language skills, or family ties to U.S. residents, rather than country of origin and being selected at random via a lottery.

In contrast, others argue that the program bolsters equity of opportunityâa quintessential American valueâby providing a pathway for individualsâparticularly those from Africa, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Unionâwho do not have family or employer connections in the United States. Some also argue that the more than one million immigrants who have moved to the United States as a result of the program have enriched the United States culturally and economically, and strengthened the nation's global connections. Some also argue that efforts to end it are racially motivated or point out that for most of U.S. history, Africans in particular had little opportunity to come to the United States other than as slaves.

Is a lottery the best way to choose applicants for diversity visas?

Some equate the use of a lottery system in the DV program to awarding "green cards" at random and argue that luck should not come into play in U.S. admissions decisions. Others argue that, given the millions of interested applicants every year, a lottery is a fair method of reducing the applicant pool because it gives all entrants who meet the program's qualifications an equal chance to apply for a diversity visa. They also cite the use of a lottery in other over-subscribed visa categories such as the H-1B and H-2B temporary worker classifications to illustrate that U.S. immigration policy considers it a reasonable tool.

Is the diversity visa lottery more vulnerable to fraud and misuse than other immigration pathways?

Some observers concerned about immigration fraud surrounding the DV program reference a 2003 State Department Office of Inspector General report and a 2007 GAO report which found fraud vulnerabilities in the DV program. They may also cite the 2017 and 2018 complaints filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in two cases seeking the denaturalization of individuals who had gained admission (in 1997 and 2001) to the United States through the DV program. In the first case, DOJ filed a complaint to denaturalize four Somali-born diversity visa recipients who falsely claimed to be a family. In the second case, DOJ filed a complaint to denaturalize a diversity visa recipient who obtained naturalization without having disclosed two prior orders of removal.

Those defending the fraud protections of the DV program counter that DOS has since revised the diversity lottery procedures to address fraud vulnerabilities, including a requirement to submit a recent photograph, the addition of biographic and facial recognition checks to reduce duplicate entries, a policy requiring the disqualification of entrants who fail to list their spouse and children on their entries, and technical improvements to limit manipulation of entries by automated bots. They also argue that the risk of fraud is not unique to the DV program and refer to the numerous fraud investigations and arrests of immigrants who entered the United States via other visa categories and the significant resources that DOS commits to fraud prevention for all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applications through its Fraud Prevention Units at posts overseas. In addition, on June 5, 2019, DOS published an interim final rule to require diversity visa entrants to provide certain information from a valid, unexpired passport on the electronic entry form. This rule is intended to make it more difficult for third parties to submit unauthorized entries, because third parties are less likely to have individuals' passport numbers.

Are there national security reasons to eliminate the diversity visa?

Some assert that the difficulties of performing background checks in many of the countries whose natives currently qualify for the DV program, as well as broader concerns about terrorism, justify the elimination of the category. Some cite the 2004 warning of the DOS Deputy Inspector General that the diversity visa lottery "contains significant vulnerabilities to national security" from state sponsors of terrorism. They argue that DV immigrants, by definition, are not required to have employer or family ties in the United States and thus may be more likely to have nefarious intent. They cite the case of a New Jersey resident responsible for killing eight people with his rental truck in lower Manhattan in 2017, who had immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan on a diversity visa. In response to that event, the Trump Administration called on Congress to immediately terminate the diversity visa lottery program.

Others respond that immigrants coming to the United States in other immigrant visa categories are not restricted if they come from these same countries, and further argue that background checks for national security risks are performed on all prospective immigrants seeking to come to the United States. They also point to the 2005 DOS Inspector General's testimony that DOS's Bureau of Consular Affairs strengthened the DV program by complying with most of the recommendations in the OIG's 2003 report. They similarly note the testimony of one of the creators of the DV Program who contended that "it is absurd to think that a lottery would be the vehicle of choice for terrorists" and that attention should instead be focused on greater security risks. They also point out that since the creation of the Visa Security Program in 2003, DHS has aided consular officers in extensively vetting individuals applying for visas. They also reference a 2007 GAO report stating: "We found no documented evidence that DV immigrants from these, or other, countries posed a terrorist or other threat. However, experts familiar with immigration fraud believe that some individuals, including terrorists and criminals, could use fraudulent means to enter or remain in the United States."

Are there foreign policy reasons to continue the diversity visa program?

Citing the millions of diversity visa lottery entries every year from around the world, some argue that the DV program is an efficient means of boosting American goodwill and "soft power" abroad, and that a diversity of immigrant origins helps the United States better respond to the challenges of globalization. Some also cite the value of remittances sent by diversity immigrants to their countries of origin as international development assistance without U.S. government expense. Others argue that the DV program encourages "brain drain" from developing countries, a concern which acknowledges that many DV immigrantsâparticularly from Africaâpossess education and skills beyond the minimum requirements for program eligibility.

Are the reasons that led to establishment of the diversity visa (e.g., to stimulate "new seed" immigration) still germane?

Supporters of the DV program argue that it honors the United States' history as a destination for enterprising immigrantsâthe "self-selected strivers" âwho arrive without family ties but with a desire to work hard for a better life. Some point to the present-day preponderance of immigrants from a handful of countries and argue that the diversity visa fosters new and more varied migration to counterbalance an admissions system weighted disproportionately to family-based immigration, which tends to perpetuate the dominance of certain countries. They also point to wide support for legislation that would remove or raise the 7% per-country limits on family- and employment-based immigrant admissions, which would likely result in further concentration of immigrant flows from the top sending countries. Even with the per-country limits and DV program in place, the total foreign-born population has become more concentrated in the top ten source countries compared to 1990 (see " Impact of the DV Program on Immigrant Diversity "). Others argue that, after almost 30 years, the diversity visa category has run its course. They might cite the countriesâsuch as Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, and Bangladeshâthat formerly qualified for the DV program and no longer do due to their increase in admissions, or the growth in immigration from Africa, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia as an indication that the need for "new seed" immigration has been met. Others counter that these trends indicate that the program is meeting its goals and should be continued. They further argue that in many countries around the world, the diversity visa remains the only accessible avenue for immigrating to the United States.

Appendix. Entropy Index Methodology and Results

The entropy index (also called the Shannon index) is a measure of the diversity of a population. Diversity can be defined as the "relative heterogeneity of a population." It is at its maximum when all subpopulations are present in equal proportions (for the purposes of this report, when each country of birth receives an equal number of LPR admissions). The formula for the entropy index is

where H is the entropy index, k is the country-of-origin group, and P is the proportion of the total from each country-of-origin group. The index can be standardized by dividing by its maximum, log K. Doing so results in a range of 0 (for the case where all of the population is in one subpopulation) to 1.0 (for the case where all subpopulations are present in equal proportions).

For this report, the standardized entropy index was calculated by year for country of birth of total LPR admissions, LPR admissions minus DV admissions, and DV admissions. This was calculated after creating a standardized list of countries across all years so that K was held constant. As shown in Figure A-1 , between FY1995 and FY2017, the entropy index varied, but in all years the index was higher when DV LPRs were included.