Bill in US Senate proposes scrapping DV lottery

International Desk: Two Republican Senators have proposed a bill to curb immigration, cancel the Diversity Visa lottery and limit the family quota.
The bill was placed before the US senate by Arkansas’s Tom Cotton and Georgia’s David Perdue.

If passed, the bill would cancel the program that allows 50,000 foreign nationals to immigrate to the US each year.

The bill also seeks to limit immigrants who have received green cards to only applying for citizenship for spouses, minor children and sick parents.

Currently green card holders can sponsor their siblings and other close relatives for US citizenship.

Media reports suggest between a half to one million persons receive permission to immigrate to the US in this way each year. The proposed bill would reduce that number significantly.

The bill would not, however, affect professional (H1B) visas.

Many see the bill as an extension of the Trump administration’s recent executive order on immigration.

Two weeks ago the executive order signed by Trump barred travel of all refugees to the US for four months and the travel of nationals from seven Muslim majority nations for three months. The order also barred the travel of Syrian nationals to the US indefinitely.

Amid heated criticism and protests of the order both inside and outside the country, a Seattle court issued a stay on a part of the order.

The White House spokesman said it would comment on the bill once it was reviewed.

However, Senator Cotton said he spoke to Trump over the phone prior to introducing the bill.

Source: Agencies

 

risingbd/Dhaka/Feb 09, 2017/A K Azad