As Sept. 30 deadline looms, applicants from Africa, other places with low levels of immigration to U.S. are stuck in Covid-19 backlog
By Ava Sasani
(WSJ) Tens of thousands of families around the world are at risk of losing a rare opportunity to immigrate to the United States.
For the past three decades, the Diversity Visa Program has awarded a path to legal permanent residence to about 55,000 people each year from countries with low levels of immigration to the U.S. Each applicant has a less than 1% chance of winning a green card.
The U.S. government must process the applications of lottery winners before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, or else the winners will lose their shot at a green card. As of June 2021, because of what the Biden administration says are Covid-19-related restraints, the State Department had only processed about 3% of the total 55,000 visa applications. Several ongoing federal lawsuits ask the State Department to reserve diversity visas to be processed after the coming deadline.
For now, Fatima Gibreel’s hope has an expiration date. She is a 29-year-old Sudanese farmworker who learned she won the visa lottery in May 2020.
“I saw I won…that was the first time my sisters and I had any hope. We didn’t have any for a very long time,” said Ms. Gibreel.
