Aftermath Of New York Attack: Trump To End US Green Card Lottery Programme
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would end the popular US green card lottery as police said a radicalized Uzbek man staged the deadly truck ramming in New York after entering the country under the programme.
The move could spell the end to the US immigration hopes of millions of people around the world who have tried to win US residence permits through the programme since it was created 27 years ago.
“I am starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery programme,” Trump angrily told reporters.
“We have to do what’s right to protect our citizens,” he said. “We will get rid of this lottery programme as soon as possible.”
The programme awards US permanent resident visas to around 50,000 applicants from around the world each year, opening the door as well for members of their broader families to follow them, so-called chain migration.
According to Trump, Sayfullo Saipov, identified by authorities as the man who plowed a rented truck into cyclists and pedestrians on a New York City bike path Tuesday, came to the country via the programme in 2010.
Saipov, 29, who was arrested after being shot by police, planned for weeks to undertake his attack in the name of Islamic State, following online instructions from the jihadist group, officials said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was “radicalized domestically” only after he came to the country, “when he started to become informed about ISIS and radical Islamic tactics.”
Trump’s threat would further close the doors to hopeful US immigrants. He ran for election last year promising a crackdown on immigration, including building a wall on the Mexican border and banning Muslim immigrants.
This year he has already slashed the country’s annual refugee intake by more than 50 percent to 45,000, tightened visa issuance around the world and ordered a ban on travelers from 11 unnamed “high-risk” countries. Refugee experts say all but one have Muslim-majority populations; they do not include Uzbekistan.
The officially titled Diversity Lottery Programme aims to diversify the origins of people granted permanent residence — so-called green cards — in the United States.
In 2015, lottery applications were received for more than 14 million people, and 49,377 won green cards, including 2,524 Uzbeks.
Trump said he wants to move US immigration to a “merit-based system” and not allow immigrants to bring their extended families.
“We want to get rid of chain migration,” he said.
Republicans in Congress have tried for several years to eliminate the visa lottery programme, but were stifled by Democratic resistance.
Trump blamed the program on Chuck Schumer, the senior Democratic senator from New York, even though it was resoundingly supported by both parties and signed into law in 1990 by a Republican president, George HW Bush.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Programme,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based” immigration, Trump tweeted.