The merits of a lottery style Diversity Visa to EU

[Itsalaugh]

Presently the only access an impoverished but ambitious, productive citizen of Africa or the Indian sub-continent is to enter illegally and claim bogus asylum status. Millions are contemplating the perilous Mediterranean sea crossing and the flow continues despite the harrowing consequences of many thousands drowning. The majority of Europeans acknowledge the necessity of legal migration but with limits. Obviously Europe can't absorb the numbers who'd wish to migrate and long-term a greater international engagement is required to increase the rate of economic expansion in marginalised counties.

The US has for 3 decades had a succesful Diversity Immigrant Visa.
Diversity Immigrant Visa - Wikipedia
Should Europe follow with a variation of this scheme but with greater intake?
I think greater intake - 500,000 total, visa recipient and partner - with an age limit, say under 35 and the succesful recipient must reside for at least 7 years in one specified EU country desiginated with visa proportionally distributed, whereupon they can avail of 'freedom of movement' across the soon to be 27 member nations.
Under this proposal Poland would receive approximately 35,000 legal migrants every year which is really a negligible amount, even over a decade.

 

[Dame_Enda]

The diversity lottery has come under much criticism in recent years including from Senator Tom Cotton. Too much diversity can lead to ghettoisation, as France and Sweden are showing with radical Islam. I don't agree with liberals and the Left that diversity should be an end in itself. Tolerance - yes. But you can't have cohesion if you have no common focus in terms of values, and radical Islam has very different attitudes to human rights that are worse even than what the RCC did in our own history since independence.

You wouldn't invite people to your house based on a lottery draw. You wouldn't know their history.

 

[Roberto Jordan]

Presently the only access an impoverished but ambitious, productive citizen of Africa or the Indian sub-continent is to enter illegally and claim bogus asylum status. Millions are contemplating the perilous Mediterranean sea crossing and the flow continues despite the harrowing consequences of many thousands drowning. The majority of Europeans acknowledge the necessity of legal migration but with limits. Obviously Europe can't absorb the numbers who'd wish to migrate and long-term a greater international engagement is required to increase the rate of economic expansion in marginalised counties.

The US has for 3 decades had a succesful Diversity Immigrant Visa.
Diversity Immigrant Visa - Wikipedia
Should Europe follow with a variation of this scheme but with greater intake?
I think greater intake - 500,000 total, visa recipient and partner - with an age limit, say under 35 and the succesful recipient must reside for at least 7 years in one specified EU country desiginated with visa proportionally distributed, whereupon they can avail of 'freedom of movement' across the soon to be 27 member nations.
Under this proposal Poland would receive approximately 35,000 legal migrants every year which is really a negligible amount, even over a decade.

The point of the diversity visa is , ahem, diversity. Hence some of the origin countries & regions you mention , such as the indian sub continent, are excluded from application because of over representation in legal ( south Asians) and undocumented ( latin americans) immigration streams.

also, the number of visas in teh US is an order of magnitude less than that which you mention.

Europe , and the US, does need to reform its migration structures. There are sound economic reasons for doing so. It needs to happen now in europe as the right wing is hardening to a US style willful disregard to the subject of migration reform.
However hand in hand with opening legal routes is the hard task of closing illegal ones or reforming legal mechanisms that are currently , it seems, open to abuse (i.e. asylum). The European left is as intransigent as their counterparts on teh right in this regard it seems.

 

[Roberto Jordan]

The diversity lottery has come under much criticism in recent years including from Senator Tom Cotton. Too much diversity can lead to ghettoisation, as France and Sweden are showing with radical Islam. I don't agree with liberals and the Left that diversity should be an end in itself. Tolerance - yes. But you can't have cohesion if you have no common focus in terms of values, and radical Islam has very different attitudes to human rights that are worse even than what the RCC did in our own history since independence.

You wouldn't invite people to your house based on a lottery draw. You wouldn't know their history.

Being selected in the lottery only means the person is eligible for assessment of the Department of State. It is not a guarantee of a visa and , in fact , it is possible to drawn, have the assessment take a long time for whatever reason, be approved only to find the total quota has been reached meaning - unlucky try again next year.
No one gets in just because their name came out of a hat.

 

[Itsalaugh]

The diversity lottery has come under much criticism in recent years including from Senator Tom Cotton. Too much diversity can lead to ghettoisation, as France and Sweden are showing with radical Islam. I don't agree with liberals and the Left that diversity should be an end in itself. Tolerance - yes. But you can't have cohesion if you have no common focus in terms of values, and radical Islam has very different attitudes to human rights that are worse even than what the RCC did in our own history since independence.

You wouldn't invite people to your house based on a lottery draw. You wouldn't know their history.

Extremely desperate people gather together their last bit of cash for the trafficers and remain undettered despite the unforgiving deserts leading the to the criminals on the North African coast before the foreboding navigation of the Med only then to maybe spend months/years in a wretched asylum camp. So how do we discourage this?

Legal migration has to be shared across the EU. The problem thus far is that illegal migrants are nearly entirely gravitating to about 10 countries.

My example Poland should be able to absorb 35,000. Dispersed across the country that should eliminate ghettos.

 

[Kevin Parlon]

Europe , and the US, does need to reform its migration structures.

I'm an immigrant who married another immigrant (from the other side of the world) in a country neither of us were born in. Our mixed immigrant children moved with us to the United States. We're at home in Japan, China, Taiwan, Australia, Ireland/Europe and here. What reform does the US and Europe need to enact and why?

 

[Kevin Parlon]

No one gets in just because their name came out of a hat.

In the United States. In Europe, if you can bully, pay, fight your way to the top of the queue, you just walk in. I can't tell you how many Chinese/Indians I know who shake their head at Europe. I'll paraphrase here but what you'll hear is something like "America, Australia and Canada take the smart guys. Europe gets the dumb guys." By which they mean, the elites of India/China are flocking to America/Canada/Australia, and those who don't make university make their way to Europe. I don't think they're far wrong.

 

[flavirostris]

Christ no. This is like one of Alan Partridge's ideas for new TV shows. 'Youth hostelling with Chris Eubank'.

The Diversity visas in the US are a disaster. The New York terrorist who bombed Chelsea was a diversity visa recipient.

 

[Itsalaugh]

Being selected in the lottery only means the person is eligible for assessment of the Department of State. It is not a guarantee of a visa and , in fact , it is possible to drawn, have the assessment take a long time for whatever reason, be approved only to find the total quota has been reached meaning - unlucky try again next year.
No one gets in just because their name came out of a hat.

Yes there would be background checks. Indeed an entire multilateral bureaucracy - plenty of job openings, maybe appeal to Dame - could possibly be created. It would need to be impressed on the migrants that Europe is not nirvana, that the resident time-limits are invioable and to prove their commitment some prior progress in the host countries language eg Slovak has to be seen.

About the number. It has to be large to discourage illegal migration. So 250k + partners. Also it'd be conducive for employers (those hard to fill roles) in respective countries to be integrated into the scheme. Obviously this can't be allowed to suppress wages.

On my theoretical figure Germany would only be getting about 70k every year when its private sector would probably desire more. Its a balancing act but this would placate much of the rising anti-immigrant tide there and maybe companies can relocate more of their operations to Greece etc with surplus supplies of labour.

 

[Itsalaugh]

Christ no. This is like one of Alan Partridge's ideas for new TV shows. 'Youth hostelling with Chris Eubank'.

The Diversity visas in the US are a disaster. The New York terrorist who bombed Chelsea was a diversity visa recipient.

27,000 drownings since 1993. Ever upward curve of illegal migration. 3 million came after the instability the West fueled in Libya and Syria. Ongoing neocon sponsored chaos seems to have widespread support among elite powerbrokers in West. So some alternatives to the current situation are necessary.
It's 34,361 and rising: how the List tallies Europe's migrant bodycount | World news | The Guardian

 

[Clanrickard]

Presently the only access an impoverished but ambitious, productive citizen of Africa or the Indian sub-continent is to enter illegally and claim bogus asylum status. Millions are contemplating the perilous Mediterranean sea crossing and the flow continues despite the harrowing consequences of many thousands drowning. The majority of Europeans acknowledge the necessity of legal migration but with limits. Obviously Europe can't absorb the numbers who'd wish to migrate and long-term a greater international engagement is required to increase the rate of economic expansion in marginalised counties.

The US has for 3 decades had a succesful Diversity Immigrant Visa.
Diversity Immigrant Visa - Wikipedia
Should Europe follow with a variation of this scheme but with greater intake?
I think greater intake - 500,000 total, visa recipient and partner - with an age limit, say under 35 and the succesful recipient must reside for at least 7 years in one specified EU country desiginated with visa proportionally distributed, whereupon they can avail of 'freedom of movement' across the soon to be 27 member nations.
Under this proposal Poland would receive approximately 35,000 legal migrants every year which is really a negligible amount, even over a decade.

No. Next.

 

[flavirostris]

27,000 drownings since 1993. Ever upward curve of illegal migration. 3 million came after the instability the West fueled in Libya and Syria. Ongoing neocon sponsored chaos seems to have widespread support among elite powerbrokers in West. So some alternatives to the current situation are necessary.
It's 34,361 and rising: how the List tallies Europe's migrant bodycount | World news | The Guardian

Not our problem. Close the ports, as Salvini did and end the drownings right there.

Europe is not a dumping ground for Africa's human surplus.

 

[Sync]

No. Next.

The merits or demerits of the lottery aside: the lottery doesn’t (and isn’t designed to) stop people entering illegally, or claiming asylum, and those 2 routes to Europe aren’t the only ones available to educated non-Euers. The op is very muddled.

 

[Itsalaugh]

I agree Sync, its to discourage hence the higher intake of my proposal. About 20million apply for the US DV scheme every year. If they know there is a viable alternative to getting into the EU it should greatly reduce numbers risking their lives on the Med crossing and a possible inititive Europe's Liberal groupings could deploy to counter rising populism as they describe Le Pen, Orban, Afd. If sub-Sahara's population really is going to double in the next 40 years while poverty remains entrenched than the migant crisis aint going away.

 

[Lagertha]

Extremely desperate people gather together their last bit of cash for the trafficers and remain undettered despite the unforgiving deserts leading the to the criminals on the North African coast before the foreboding navigation of the Med only then to maybe spend months/years in a wretched asylum camp. So how do we discourage this?

Legal migration has to be shared across the EU. The problem thus far is that illegal migrants are nearly entirely gravitating to about 10 countries.

My example Poland should be able to absorb 35,000. Dispersed across the country that should eliminate ghettos.

Are you kidding me? These coonts paying to be trafficked are not poor and impoverished, they've got thousands of Euro to pay the people traffickers, they see it as an investment, a free life on the pigs back in Europe in exchange for a few thousand Euro, then they can get their entire extended families in through reunification. We do not need the dregs from the arseholes of Africa, India and the Middle East, all they bring is violence, rape, child abuse and extreme Islam.

There' enough of the fookers in Europe already, that's why the British want out of Europe, it's why the Italians closed their ports to migrant ferrying NGO's and it's why more and more people in countries with high volumes of these parasites are voting for anti migrant parties, idiots can call it populism, realists call it self preservation.

 

[tsarbomb]

The first sentence of the op is total rubbish.

Europe needs to tighten control of its borders. Most people who enter illegally never leave and that's the problem

 

[Itsalaugh]

Are you kidding me? These coonts paying to be trafficked are not poor and impoverished, they've got thousands of Euro to pay the people traffickers, they see it as an investment, a free life on the pigs back in Europe in exchange for a few thousand Euro, then they can get their entire extended families in through reunification. We do not need the dregs from the arseholes of Africa, India and the Middle East, all they bring is violence, rape, child abuse and extreme Islam.

There' enough of the fookers in Europe already, that's why the British want out of Europe, it's why the Italians closed their ports to migrant ferrying NGO's and it's why more and more people in countries with high volumes of these parasites are voting for anti migrant parties, idiots can call it populism, realists call it self preservation.

The liberal polar-opposite view to yours across the EU wont countenance rigid curtailment of bogus asylum seekers (in reality people fleeing soul destroying poverty) if there is no alternative. Look to the US where half the country are embracing migration in opposition to Trump. The drowning images aint going to stop anytime soon.

 

[Sync]

I agree Sync, its to discourage hence the higher intake of my proposal. About 20million apply for the US DV scheme every year. If they know there is a viable alternative to getting into the EU it should greatly reduce numbers risking their lives on the Med crossing and a possible inititive Europe's Liberal groupings could deploy to counter rising populism as they describe Le Pen, Orban, Afd. If sub-Sahara's population really is going to double in the next 40 years while poverty remains entrenched than the migant crisis aint going away.

It doesn’t discourage it, (indeed one could argue the opposite).

Green Card winner statistics

The visa isn’t designed to address illegal immigration. The vast vast majority for the US comes from Mexico. Mexico isn’t even in the visa lottery.

How can an asylum seeker hope to meet the strict requirements of the green card system in the first place? You’re looking at 2 utterly unrelated aspects of immigration and mixing them.

I’m not saying there isn’t merit to doing offshore immigrant screening, I’m saying the lottery is utterly unrelated to that.

 

[Itsalaugh]

It doesn’t discourage it, (indeed one could argue the opposite).

Green Card winner statistics

The visa isn’t designed to address illegal immigration. The vast vast majority for the US comes from Mexico. Mexico isn’t even in the visa lottery.

How can an asylum seeker hope to meet the strict requirements of the green card system in the first place? You’re looking at 2 utterly unrelated aspects of immigration and mixing them.

I’m not saying there isn’t merit to doing offshore immigrant screening, I’m saying the lottery is utterly unrelated to that.

I'm not advocating replicating the exact parameters the US use to assess their applicants but for some lottery style of visa that may arrest the surge from ME + Africa into EU.

 

[Sync]

I'm not advocating replicating the exact parameters the US use to assess their applicants but for some lottery style of visa that may arrest the surge from ME + Africa into EU.

Ok. So what would the standards be? The US has strict educational and employment requirements. Do we mirror them? Are the majority of illegal immigrants people who meet those standards?