ARTICLES

Posted on Fri, Jan. 02, 2004

Green Card Applicants Miss Deadline After Overwhelmed Site Crashes

NEW YORK – (KRT) – Note to U.S. green card lottery seekers: when applying electronically, don't go down to the wire.

An avalanche of hopeful entrants crashed the visa lottery Web site, leaving many unable to apply before this week's deadline.

“At first we thought it was our computers, but then we heard people all over the city were having the same problem,” said immigrant advocate Rufus Zumo Arkol, who helped applicants at Staten Island 's African Community Center . “It was a bit frustrating – everybody just wanted the chance.”

Applicants had from Nov. 1 to 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday to apply for the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery. Under the program, the State Department gives out 50,000 immigrant visas to people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States .

“The issue here is waiting until the last minute, and that's their choice,” said Kelly Shannon, a spokeswoman at the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

While prior lotteries took applications only by mail, this one tried to curb fraud by requiring applications to be submitted electronically.

An estimated 800,000 people were successful in submitting their electronic applications in the last three days of the lottery, Shannon said. Before that, more than 5.4 million people worldwide applied for the random drawing, she said.

Kim Nichols, co-executive director of the African Services Committee in Harlem , said many lessons were learned.

“The State Department should have advise the public to apply early and should also improve their server's capacity to make sure they can handle all the applicants,” she said.

The following articles are in PDF format.

Vancouver Sun - Vancouver company cashes in on U.S. immigration lottery

Vancouver Sun - Why work in the United States?

Toronto Star - Window of opportunity

Toronto Sun - Cashing in on American dream