I think if you cannot afford the $30, then there is no way you can afford to move to the US.
I agree, but with all due respect, nobody mentioned the inability to pay $30 on the basis of solvency. That much is so obvious it is scarcely worth mentioning. As presumably your chargeability and residence is Ire, this issue is nominal and superficial. As I mentioned before, this change will not affect those of us in Europe or Oceania to nearly the same extent.
With respect to that, this matter is more multifaceted than simply the gross amount of $30.
The first area we have to cover is the economic reasoning:
The official stated purpose is to “cover the costs” of running the program. According to the spokesman of the Senator concerned;
“...the fee would help offset the cost of the program and avoid adding to the U.S. budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office had estimated it would cost about $36 million to provide a one-year extension to the program for refugees.”
If each applicant had to pay $30 for this year’s DV-2013 (that’s everyone here), and a similar number entered, the DoS would be looking at an immediate income of;
[($)30 x (applicants) 8,000,000 = ($)240,000,000].
Even if we half the number of people entering the lottery to four million applicants on the relatively extreme basis that one out of every two applicants no longer decide to enter due to the fee, that’s still a total income of US$120m.
Now do you understand how ridiculous the assertion is? Does anyone honestly think or believe it costs the DoS anywhere near either those amounts to run this program? (Or for that matter the Refugee Program that the DV-Lottery is now going to subsidise?) I personally have heard a lot of complaints and criticism about the Diversity Lottery Program from reports in the past, but never that it’s a loss maker, or that it costs the DoS more to run than it brings in.
Remember, this figure does not include the US$819.00 fee paid by each applicant successfully assigned an interview within the visa bulletin priority cut-off date (provided they turn up as scheduled.) Getting an interview does not necessarily equal getting a visa, but nonetheless still requires a non-refundable US$819.00 for adjudication of the case, which is fair enough.
Thus, if the issue really was capital financing, the proposed $30 can additionally be added by Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) to the total price of the interview & visa costs as a surcharge. I hope that explains my point on the economic side.
Currently: [($)819.00 x (maximum applicants) 55,000 = ($)45,045,000]
$30 surcharge: [($)849.00 x (maximum applicants) 55,000 = ($)46,695,000]
A further
$1,650,000 is automatically raised.
The second area we have to cover is capability and practicality:
Again I shall reiterate. I never once stated that the issue is the inability of those in the “third world” to pay USD$30. My concern is the practicality. Let’s look at the shift in entry method as a good comparison.
The shift, as we all appreciate, to using electronic means of entry has a distinct number of advantages in terms of efficiency over the old paper entries.
In spite of the lack of proliferation of internet access, computers and even electricity in many eligible nations around the world, the DoS decided that it nonetheless should shift the sole means of entry into a streamlined central electronic method. This could be justified in a number of ways.
Firstly, applicants would have a period of roughly one month to acquire the resources and means in order to position themselves to make an internet based entry. As the lottery is not a “first come first served” system, this would not deny their chance if their entry is early or later on during the entry period, as long as it was complete and on time.
Secondly, it would shift reliance away from often unreliable, sketchy and temperamental domestic postal services that may or may not deliver the paper methods and/or not deliver (or steal) the Notification Letters. In a way, the internet equalised this area for the good of the DV-Lottery, and for the benefit of the applicants, whether first world, or third.
Thirdly, why when the DV-Lottery launched, was it free? Not even a nominal fee of US$1.00 was mandated. Surely everyone can afford a dollar, right? The very reason that the Lottery survived so long, and has been free to enter is not inconsequential as it seems. The sole adjudicating factor since the origin of this Lottery before any other is the applicants’ place of birth. For practical reasons literacy has to be proven, and the best way to do that is a High School Diploma, or employment in a job that requires at least two years work experience to adequately perform. We all agree, quite a low bar, but fair. This will now change to whether or not the applicant can pay $30.
A Lottery that has its first criteria as to whether or not an applicant is capable to pay $30 in time before the deadline or not is not a Diversity Visa Lottery, it’s just a Visa Lottery. Do you understand now how dangerous this is to the whole existence of the program? The Program has credibility because of its ethos of diversification, not to take entry fees of $30 or $1.00 or whatever.
A month is long enough to gather yourself and submit on time, it’s not long enough if debit/credit bank account transfers have to be made, or deposits into an agent’s account to clear before entry is submitted, especially when there are so few honest agents around and
millions of hopeful applicants wanting to share in the American Dream, that’s the reasoning for the DVL’s open entry policy, the applicant pays at the end, and may do so
in cash at the Embassy on the basis they're selected on their
diversity fairly
The $30 entry fee fulfils none of the rationales of a Diversity Visa. It does not streamline the process, it does not add to the purpose, it does not help applicants or further the goal of diversification, in fact in some cases it does exactly opposite of these things. It leaves the poorest, who are the majority of the victims of
advanced fee fraud at the mercy of unscrupulous agents. We all read the Official instruction Booklet PDF warnings that entry is free, that nobody has to pay anyone to make our entry for us, and that the DoS recommends that individuals make their own entry.
How is this to work now? If I personally know that the reality on the ground is that many people use agents and have little choice about it, then the DoS must know, and if the DoS knows, then they will be guilty of perpetuating a policy that will greatly disadvantage those in the poorest regions knowingly while chasing their American Dream.
This, I’m afraid inevitably will sooner or later come back to bite the foundation of the Lottery. The Diversity Visa is not popular in the US. This Diversity Visa also happens to be the only way many people will ever get the opportunity to immigrate to the United States.
And if this $30 fee is introduced, it will not be a Diversity Lottery Visa, it will merely become a visa raffle, and will have no reason to exist because it serves no fair decent purpose.
Is it a 'done deal' this charge, or is it still speculative? Often much of what the government WANT to introduce never fully makes it.
We can only hope.
Hi Qewty,
What you say is true, the lottery has survived many attempts on it's life in the past, both to kill it, and to alter it significantly. The Gregg Amendment would have given 2/3 of the all the Visas to those with Ph.D/Mscs in mechanics, science, technology and mathematics had it passed.
This looks to be rather more serious, and as the WSJ stated, is expected to pass.
Only time will tell.
