Congress just loves to tinker with immigration law. Now, it needs some more tinkering because the Diversity Immigrant Visa (aka the “Visa Lottery”) has met and exceeded its goals. While the numbers on paper are small, it’s a magnet for many of the immigration problems we see today.

A hundred years ago, US immigration law favored Europeans and established a quota system and numerical limitations. Starting in the 1960s, our current preference system (immediate relatives, family preference, employment preference) was introduced. Immigrants surged from Latin America and Asia. In the mid-1980s, proto-diversity visas were allocated primarily to the Irish and Italians.

AI" src="https://images.americanthinker.com/xr/xrxh1oepr1kky0quakei_640.jpg" />

Image created using AI.

The Immigration Act of 1990 created today’s Diversity Immigrant Visa category (DV) for nationals of countries that are not the largest sources of immigrants to the US, with selection via a lottery among entrants. In FY 2025, the nationals of only 19 countries were excluded from the program. This green card lottery is numerically limited to 55,000 visas (the entrant plus eligible accompanying relatives) annually.

Since 1990, DVs have averaged around 50,000 issuances per year. That’s on top of around one million immigrant visas issued to immediate relatives of American citizens, other family members of citizens and green card holders, and employment-based permanent immigrants. The President, via Congress, sets the number of refugees that can be admitted every year. There is no legal limitation on the number of those who can be granted asylum.

The 1.8 million or so multicultural immigrants admitted from nearly every country on earth........

© American Thinker