Ditch the green-card lottery

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have called for an increase in visas for skilled immigrants, angering some of President-elect Trump’s supporters. According to the two entrepreneurs, the U.S.

has too few skilled workers, and our outdated immigration system is to blame. Democrats have mostly sat on the sidelines during this debate, but they shouldn’t. They should take a page out of Mr.

Trump’s “The Art of the Deal" and make an offer of their own: Ditch the green-card lottery and increase the number of employment-based visas granted every year. The lottery, formally known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, provides up to 55,000 immigrant visas annually. It aims to attract applicants from countries with otherwise low immigration rates to the U.S.

Unlike most visa programs, it requires no job offer or familial tie for entry. Two years of work experience or a high-school diploma suffices, and the winners are chosen at random. When the diversity visa was created in 1980, it wasn’t for altruistic reasons.

It was more of a political boondoggle. Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants were flocking to the U.S. Many didn’t qualify for amnesty or employment green cards.

Irish-American congressmen offered a solution: the diversity green card. In its early stages about 40% of the lottery winners were Irish. In Ireland and the U.S., community leaders organized application parties where attendees filled out applications, sometimes creating hundreds of forms for a single applicant.

The Irish government even chartered planes to deliver applications to Washington. Today, no country dominates the selection process, but fraud still abounds. Meanwhile, the U.S.