She was in her fourth year of college, lived in Yemen, was recently married and would soon be pregnant when she found out that she won the United States Diversity Visa Lottery, also known as the “Green Card Lottery”. It looked like Al-Doais had outpaced the odds – 12.4 million applicants applied for a chance to get up to 50,000 visas that could be issued in 2017.
But in 2017, then-President Donald Trump took a series of actions aimed at preventing individuals from Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States. The one that came into effect – Presidential Proclamation 9645 – imposed various levels of restrictions on foreigners from eight countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen.
The path to a new life in the USA for recipients of the diversity visa lottery as it seemed almost blocked. Although she said she was not turned down by executive order, she was unable to obtain her green card before time passed.
“After our dreams of traveling to the United States were shattered, everything changed completely and it was shattered in my opinion,” Al-Doais told CNN. “The simplest way to describe my life today is that it is a nightmare.”
Now, four years later, with restrictions lifted by President Joe Biden, Al-Doais and other recipients of diversity visas, they hope they can once again have the chance to re-establish themselves in the United States.
‘Really lost’
The diversity visa program was established as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 to promote immigration from countries with fewer people coming to the United States.
“It is an opportunity for individuals to enter the United States who normally will have no other way to get here,” Abed Ayoub, policy director for the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, told CNN.
Millions enter the lottery each year; only a fraction is chosen.
Al-Doais said winning the visa lottery “was one of the best times of his life”.
“It was a defining moment of great happiness,” she told CNN.
Lottery winners can apply for visas to the United States – a process that can be extremely expensive and challenging.
Ayoub said that among the diversity lottery winners he works with, it is common for “they have accumulated significant debt” when trying to obtain their green cards.
Al-Doais and his family sold their furniture and jewelry and borrowed thousands of dollars. As the United States does not currently have an embassy in Yemen, she said they traveled thousands of kilometers to Malaysia to do visa interviews. Al-Doais said that shortly after her interview, she received an email from the embassy stating that her visa was ready to be issued, but her husband’s visa was being processed. She had a series of problems getting the visa, and before she could, her window of opportunity expired.
She now lives in Istanbul with her three-year-old daughter, Sidra. Her husband fled on foot to Europe a year and a half ago in search of work; he is now in a refugee camp in Serbia.
“My husband is not with me. I am psychologically destroyed. I am really lost; I do not know what to do or what will happen to me in the future,” she told CNN.
Ahmed, a winner of the Syrian diversity lottery, said he was invited to an interview at the US Embassy in Jordan in 2019, when the US Embassy in Syria suspended operations in 2012. CNN is using his first name just for his safety. Ahmed said he went into debt to pay taxes and travel expenses.
Although he knew that Trump’s ban was in place, Ahmed said he was willing to bet on the slightest chance of leaving Syria.
“If there was at least a one percent chance that I would have to leave this country that literally destroyed me as a young man with ambition and hope for a better life, I would enjoy it,” he said.
He told CNN that he was informed by a consular officer that his visa application was denied because of the presidential proclamation, and that he did not qualify for an exemption.
‘Get it wrong’
Ayoub, of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, told CNN: “the previous government could have said that we are not providing these visas because of the ban.”
“But they didn’t do that. They provided that hope. And it is now the responsibility of this current government to fix that mistake and give them the opportunity to enter the United States,” he said.
“This review will consider reopening immigrant visa applications that have been denied due to the suspension and restriction on entry imposed by PP 9645 or 9983; whether it is necessary to charge an additional fee to process these visa applications; and developing a plan for speed up the analysis of these visa applications “, he says.
On Thursday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that “recipients of diversity visas with valid and unexpired visas can now seek immediate entry into the United States as they are covered by a general exception of interest national”.
However, under current legislation, most of those who were unable to obtain a visa before the window expires or who have an expired visa will have to start over from scratch.
Pending the State Department review, applicants who were refused because of Trump’s PP 9645 and did not qualify for an exemption before January 20, 2020 “must submit a new visa application … and pay a new visa application processing fee, “the consular affairs website says.
Al-Doais and Ahmed are hopeful that policy changes will give them another chance to receive green cards.
“I hope that President Biden, his government and the State Department will give us back our rights, me and everyone who won the lottery, since 2017, because, really, we are living in a truly tragic condition,” Al-Doais said. to CNN.
“I’m ready to do anything to get out of this hell,” said Ahmed.