Diversity Lottery for Fiscal Year 2021 (DV-2021)

It’s that time of year again! The Diversity Visa Lottery for fiscal year 2021 (DV-2021) is here. The online registration period for the DV-2021 Program begins on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 12:00 noon (EDT), and concludes on Tuesday, November 5, 2019 at 12:00 noon (EST). It is recommended that foreign nationals not wait until the end of the period to apply as heavy demand could cause delays on the website. Additionally, they should not submit multiple applications since doing so will result in disqualification.

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The Washington Post: “A renowned scientist wants to thank the stranger who helped him stay in America”  

Mahmoud Ghannoum, a prominent scientist and the director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University and the leading microbiome gut researcher in the world, wants to thank a generous travel agent who was instrumental in helping him immigrate to America almost thirty years ago. It was 1990, and Ghannoum’s country, Kuwait, had just been invaded by Saddam Hussein. With his family staying in a dorm room in England, and his town in Kuwait destroyed and financial assets frozen, Ghannoum traveled to Washington, D.C. for a conference where he had planned to speak. He believed his best chance for establishing a new life was in America, and he hoped to find a job through the conference. But the scientists there told him it was the wrong conference for job hunting, and if he could wait in D.C. for one week, he’d likely get a job at another conference.

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Forbes: “USCIS Documents Reveal The Sources Of Trump H-1B Visa Restrictions”

Newly released documents from US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) explain how government policies have increased H-1B denials and Requests for Evidence (RFEs). These government documents, previously hidden from the public and only released after a FOIA lawsuit by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), demonstrate that USCIS adjudicators have been “directed to restrict approvals of H-1B petitions without the legal or regulatory authority to justify those decisions,” according to Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-partisan public policy research organization. These restrictions have led to a decrease in highly skilled foreign nationals in the US.

Jonathan Wasden, a partner with Wasden Banias LLC, who has filed lawsuits regarding H-1B adjudications, told Anderson that in the government documents “noncontroversial matters” are supported by statute and regulation but their most “controversial policies” including “overreaching into Department of Labor regulations, requiring guaranteed work assignments and the employer-employee rule” do not have such citations. “It appears that the agency made dramatic changes to H-1B policy without grounding those changes in any law,” he said. “Attorneys have known this is happening in practice, but to see they don’t even attempt to create a facade of statutory support is shocking.” AILA President Marketa Lindt noted: “The documents released by USCIS reveal the way the agency has shifted its focus in these adjudications, creating more obstacles for U.S. businesses to hire and retain the talent they need.”

Elite Daily: “‘OITNB’ Star Laura Gómez Tells Real-Life Immigrants’ Stories On-Screen & Off"

At the end of season 6 of the hit show Orange Is the New Black, Laura Gómez’s character, Bianca Flores, was transferred from Litchfield Penitentiary to an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, and in season 7, the show dealt with her experience in detention. "I felt, in a way, it was an interesting way of working around my anxieties at the moment," Gómez, herself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, said to Elite Daily. “This is affecting us one way or another. I thought it was a wonderful way for me to canonize all this and to find a place to put it. And we all knew we had a big responsibility.”

Inspired in part by her work on Orange is the New Black, Gómez wanted to highlight the experiences and accomplishments of real-life immigrants. Under the hashtag #ImmigrantStoriesByLauraGomez, Gómez has profiled actors, LGBTQ activists, novelists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and young students. "I just had a feeling that this was a way to use my platform, which has been amplified by this show to comment on positive aspects of immigrants, the way I know it, the way I experience it," Gómez said. "I felt this could be my way of humanizing us and giving a little profile of a journey of an immigrant and a positive impact in American society."