The Green Card Lottery is an annual program which grants green cards to 50,000 immigrants from all over the world. A green card, also known as a permanent resident card is an immigration document that shows that you can live, work and study in the United States. This is the only way to stay in the United States on a more or less permanent basis aside from citizenship. In order to become a citizen an immigrant must first possess a permanent resident card for a certain amount of time. Find out more about how to get a green card through the Green Card Lottery, also known as the Diversity Visa Lottery Program.
Invariably there is always talk of whether or not this will be the last year that the State Department will be administering the Green Card Lottery. These rumors might be started by the general human wariness of things that supposedly must be too good to be true. Immigrants need not worry about the Green Card Lottery going anywhere.
There has been some talk within the Republican Party during this election year about doing away with the Green Card Lottery program and using the visas that were granted based on diversity for foreign students who graduated with either science, technology, engineering or mathematics degrees (STEM) at American universities. While this may become a party platform it is likely to be rather difficult to do considering in order to get rid of the Green Card Lottery a very significant portion of congress would have to vote against it.
Really, a better idea is to keep both ideas. If it was decided that the green cards from the diversity visa program would go to STEM students, well, what would happen to those students who comprise the surplus beyond 50,000? Being a meritocracy, the United States would not like the idea of granted benefits to some and not others with the same qualifications. What they should do is grant STEM graduates with permanent resident cards and maintain the Diversity Visa Program.