The Atlantic

The Diversity Visa Program Makes No Sense

The immigration lottery epitomizes how far U.S. policies have drifted from any purpose.
Source: AP

Sayfullo Saipov did not arrive in the United States alone. In 2009, he was one of 3,284 lucky residents of Uzbekistan to win the green-card lottery. That same year, the lottery granted green cards to—among others—2,894 Albanians, 590 Australians, 1,154 Bulgarians, 4,307 Kenyans, and 2,331 Turks; for a total of 50,000 admissions.  

Good and bad qualities are randomly distributed in the human population, and randomly is how the diversity lottery distributes its rewards. So it should not be very surprising that one member of the class of

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic5 min readAmerican Government
What Nikki Haley Is Trying to Prove
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of
The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
The Americans Who Need Chaos
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why peop
The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult

Related Books & Audiobooks