We Have a 'Diversity Visa' Program? Noem Pauses It, Thank God

AP Photo/Steven Senne

America does not have the "worst" ruling class ever. There are countless examples of societies run by actual psychopaths, so as much as I wanted to open my essay with the shock word "worst," that goes way over the line. 

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So, how about "most stupid?" How does "we have the stupidest ruling class ever" sound?

Still hyperbole, I suppose, but it captures the essence of our problem. When sober reflection and prudence are called for, the superpower of our elite is to ignore the necessity and run headlong into danger. 

The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country. 

In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people. 

At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.

"Diversity" is one of those catchwords that appeals to our elite. It has a nice ring. Embracing it is an answer to the accusation that we are white nationalists who look down on others for nothing other than the color of their skin. If you mouth the words "Diversity is our strength," you are proving to the world you are not one of those mouth-breathers with missing teeth, a still in the swamp, and a KKK outfit in the closet. 

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So the United States has a "diversity" Visa that gives people—55,000 a year!—a path around the long line of people waiting to enter the country, an instant Green Card just for being from a country from which relatively few immigrate to the United States. 

If you hail from such a country and want to move here, you can enter a lottery, and if you are lucky enough to win, you are on the path to citizenship. It even has a cutesy name for the migrants: "new seeds."

For God's sake, man. 

Eligible countries are grouped into six geographic regions: Europe; Africa; Asia; Oceania; North America (excluding Mexico); and South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) calculates each region’s annual diversity visa allotment using a specific formula and recent immigration statistics. The allocation formula, which is recalculated every year, gives fewer visas to “high-admission” regions, or any region that accounted for more than a sixth of all immigrant admissions to the United States in the previous five years.   Additionally, no more than 7 percent of the year’s available visas may go to natives of any one country.

To be fair, our immigration system is stupid in many ways, and this is just one of them. The family-based system we use creates chain migration, which is a great deal for poorer families who want to emigrate en masse to the United States, but doesn't clearly help strengthen the country itself. Our asylum system is clearly insane. So I suppose adding a special class of people whose sole claim to contribute to the United States is that they are less likely to fit in makes sense.

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Under the diversity immigrant program, up to 55,000 visas can be awarded annually through a lottery to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. It is a small part of the country’s overall immigration.

In the past, it has offered one of the fastest routes to permanent legal residence, or green cards, and recipients of the visa do not need to have family ties or special skills. Millions of people enter the lottery every year.

E pluribus unum—Out of many, one—has been taken half to heart. The many part still applies, but uniting everybody seems to have been tossed out the window entirely. "Diversity is our strength" is another way of saying that we need to dump the second half of the equation and shatter our national unity.

The goal, we are told, is to make everybody more tolerant. Do you see that? I don't see that. 

We now have people serving in Congress who openly trash the United States and declare their loyalty to other countries. Ilhan Omar, a favorite on the left, regularly tells her Somali constituents that she represents Somalia in Congress and wants to move back there. Delia Ramirez proudly asserts that she is Guatemalan first (her mother was an illegal immigrant, and she an anchor baby). 

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The "Diversity Visa" program is not, admittedly, the likeliest source of problems when it comes to our immigration system; asylum policies are clearly much worse. The fact that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered by this method is a footnote to the story, unlike, say, the Afghan asylee who went on a rampage in D.C. It's not as if there was any obvious red flag that we know of. 

No, the problem is that the system as a whole is designed to enhance divisions. Do we really need a program designed to import people based on the criteria that they are least likely to already fit in?

Really? For what purpose? To prove we aren't bigoted? 

It's a stupid reason. 


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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | December 18, 2025
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