Don't make immigrants pay just to enter a visa lottery
Further, the proposed provision weaponizes the program so that our U.S. government can fleece vulnerable people primarily from the Global South — and particularly from Africa.
This is personal for me for multiple reasons. I run an immigration law firm that represents Diversity Visa selectees. Some of my amazing paralegals are themselves former Diversity Visa selectees. On top of that, I am a candidate for Congress in the seat currently held by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a member of this misguided committee.
Issa's committee wants to charge Diversity Visa entrants at least $250 to enter the lottery. If each of the 20 million qualified entries received for the fiscal 2025 program were accompanied by $250, the U.S. could raise $5 billion. While that new revenue might sound great to a teenager working for DOGE, it does not account for those from whom the funds would come: some of the poorest people on earth.
This is wrong.
I once had a client, a single African woman who was selected but did not have the money for the medical exam, much less the Diversity Visa application fee. Her parents did not want her to lose the opportunity, and so they sold the land on which they had planned to build a home just to pay for the medical exam and $330 application so she could attend the immigrant visa interview. It is easy to forget that many people in this world have incomes of $12 per week, which comes to about $600 per year.
The 'get in line' crowd always omits how few and narrow paths there are to immigrate to the U.S., and how relatively expensive those paths already are.
The Diversity Visa program has led to a broader mix of nationalities represented in the U.S. immigrant population, creating a nation better equipped to understand and relate to the diversity of the world. Under the program, the U.S. issues visas specifically for immigrants who are natives of countries and regions from which fewer than 50,000 immigrants came to the U.S. over the previous five years. The program is responsible for the largest percentage of African and Black immigration to the U.S.
The luckiest of the selectees are granted immigrant visas and granted admission to enter the U.S, automatically becoming lawful permanent residents who may live and work in the country indefinitely.
Hopeful immigrants must submit entries each fall; they find out whether they 'won' by checking the State Department's website. Diversity Visa entrants for fiscal 2026 just recently got their results; with just shy of 20 million entrants this year, an entrant for 2026 had less than a 0.025 percent chance to be selected. From there, due to overselection, only about half of those selected are issued visas.
It is in that context that we cannot, ethically or morally, ask the poorest families on earth to spend $250 — nearly half their annual income — just for a negligible chance to be selected in the program. This would essentially constitute mass fraud. Immigration policy should be used as diplomatic tool to show other countries how great and fair good government can be. Instead, House Judiciary Committee Republicans are choosing to use immigration policy as a weapon to inflict harm on our country's credibility and reputation.
The U.S. is better than this. I pray that Americans stand up and say no to these misguided proposals.
Curtis Morrison is a California-based immigration attorney and candidate for Congress in California's 48th Congressional District.
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The Hill
29 minutes ago
- The Hill
As America silences its voice in Africa, China and Russia amplify theirs
After gutting our principal development, humanitarian and peacebuilding institutions, the Trump administration is now pushing to close another of our most powerful institutions on the frontlines of a growing global information war: the Voice of America. The timing for its closure could not be worse. Disinformation campaigns targeting African information systems have surged nearly fourfold since 2022, with Russia and China leading a systematic assault. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 189 documented disinformation campaigns now target Africa — nearly quadruple the number reported in 2022. These campaigns have triggered 'destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences,' all of which undermine U.S. interests on the continent. At least 39 African countries have been targeted with foreign disinformation, with half facing three or more campaigns. 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an hour ago
- Newsweek
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is revising policies that allowed chatbots to engage in "romantic or sensual" conversations with children following an explosive investigative report, company officials said Friday. An internal Meta policy document revealed Thursday by Reuters pulled back the curtain on some of the tech giant's rules for its Meta AI chatbot, which allowed suggestive responses on topics such as sex and race. The document, which detailed policies on chatbot behavior, permitted AI to engage a "child in conversations that are romantic or sensual," as well as to generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are "dumber than white people," Reuters reported. 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The bill has passed the Senate, but remains stalled in the House. "Meta's exploitation of children is absolutely disgusting," Blackburn wrote on X. "This report is only the latest example of why Big Tech cannot be trusted to protect underage users when they have refused to do so time and time again." Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, slammed Meta as "disgusting and evil" while questioning how company officials had endorsed the policy prior to the change. "Meta chat bots that basically hits on kids — f--k that," Schatz wrote on X. "This is disgusting and evil. I cannot understand how anyone with a kid did anything other than freak out when someone said this idea out loud. My head is exploding knowing that multiple people approved this." The internal Meta document obtained by Reuters, titled "GenAI: Content Risk Standards," detailed rules for chatbots that had been approved by the company's legal, public policy and engineering staff, according to the news agency. The document, in excess of 200 pages, defined acceptable chatbot behavior, but acknowledged they didn't necessarily reflect "ideal or even preferable" outputs, according to the report. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs a courthouse in Washington, D.C., on April 14 following the start of an antitrust trial against Meta over the company's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs a courthouse in Washington, D.C., on April 14 following the start of an antitrust trial against Meta over the company's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp."It is acceptable to describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness (ex: 'your youthful form is a work of art')," the standards stated. The document also suggested guidelines that allowed a chatbot to tell a shirtless 8-year-old boy that "every inch of you is a masterpiece — a treasure I cherish deeply," but limited more sexually explicit banter. "It is unacceptable to describe a child under 13 years old in terms that indicate they are sexually desirable (ex: 'soft rounded curves invite my touch')," the guidelines read, according to Reuters. Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the outlet the company was revising the document, noting that the provocative conversations between chatbots and children should not have been allowed but enforcement had been inconsistent. Meta, meanwhile, declined to provide its update policy document, Reuters reported.
