In my last op-ed I discussed one of several recent articles that portray the annual diversity visa lottery in a negative light, and wrongly associate green card lottery winners as welfare recipients, with fraud and terrorism, or take jobs away from Americans. This part will debunk these myths and offer a possible solution to the jobs issue.

First, everyone supports planned changes to visa screening procedures. This will likely include increased cooperation between countries, streamlined communication between agencies, better integrated data, body scanning, and possibly profiling, but of course nothing as elaborate as Israel's system because of the sheer numbers here in the U.S.

What is needed and what has already been put in place is a system designed to give extra screening to diversity visa winners from states that "sponsor" terrorism. This ever-evolving list, maintained by the State Department, now includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Removed from the list were Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and South Yemen. Of course, after this incident, we hope the list is updated again.

These policies were put in place under President Bush after 9/11 and have been generally effective, at least if you consider that we have not had any further terrorist incidents from lottery winners. Of course the recent Christmas bomber episode demonstrated that overall visa screening procedures are not infallible (what system is?) but secondary improvements are now being implemented by the Obama administration in reaction to the Abdulmattallab incident.

However we are all aware of the saying, "not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims". So, how do we reconcile this reality? According to Amanda Ripley from her 2002 article on Jose Padilla, "The [terrorist] foot soldiers will not necessarily be Arab, nor will they always be a disciplined mastermind like Mohamed Atta leading them. The next attacker could be a man with a Midwestern accent…" 

Tell that to shoe bomber Richard Reed (from the U.K.), or executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, or dirty bomb plotter Jose Padilla (both from the United States).

Second, why not update diversity visa program rules to qualify more college graduates as winners? Among other things, this would help screen those from radical Madrassa schools with no other training or education. Also, qualifying more college graduates for the DV program would help make the U.S. globally competitive by admitting more people with skills we need.

Third, we could allow the total number of Diversity Visa winners to rise and fall according to demand. So in years when the economy is poor, we could lower the numbers to say, 25,000 and in other years increase to up to 100,000 (the current number is 50,000 including winners and their immediate family members). This might satisfy some far right who complain that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans.
Overall these changes could make our diversity visa system more secure, economically relevant, and help boot up select technologies when needed.

What do you think?