44,000 candidates marooned by US Visa Lottery

The US State Department has sprung an unprecedented surprise to some selectees of the DV 2014 Lottery. Out of the 125,000 people randomly selected worldwide in May 2013, only about three - quarters of them have had a chance to appear before a consular officer for a visa interview.

Over 44,000 people will never have a visa appointment. The cut – off number for Africa is 81,100 for September which is the last month of the 2014 fiscal year. This therefore means that selectees with case numbers above 2014AF00081100 have had their “American dreams” dashed on the wall; they will never have a chance to migrate to the USA under the DV2014 program.

At an era that bush falling is in vogue and Hidden Aid from the Diaspora plays a vital role, this is very devastating to some families.

Many selectees have been caught up in make-shift plans.

Liza dropped plans to travel to Asia on a scholarship last year because she had won the American Lottery and wanted to focus on it due to limited finances to pursue two costly programs concurrently. Today, she can neither get back the scholarship nor travel to the USA on a DV2014 ticket.

Ali who passed the Advanced Level GCE last year decided to go hustling to raise money for his eventual immigration to the USA. Today, as the news broke, he was inconsolable; he had missed out on the registration for some competitive entrance examinations for the second year running because he had “greater ambitions.”

Christy, who is now three months pregnant, had reached the decision to be put in the family way because her new lower-class boyfriend had been selected in the DV2014 lottery; they both abandoned their university studies to prepare themselves for a new level of life in America. But they now all have to deal with the adversities right here in Cameroon.

Quizzed on what prompted the unprecedented cut-off and on whether there is any rationale to select 125,000 people to end up giving a visa appointment only to 81,100 of them, and also whether DV2015 might follow the same trend, a visa officer for the US State Department had this to say: “There has been a greater than usual number of applicants for DV 2014. We do not have sufficient numbers of visas for all DV selectees. We usually select more than 50,000 people because many applicants do not complete the process; however, we are obliged by law to only issue 50,000 visas. Accordingly, once we issue the number allowed by law, we cannot issue additional visas even to people that may have been selected as eligible to apply for the DV. Please check back in September to see if you can apply for DV 2016, and please apply as early as possible if you are eligible. DV2015 is likely to follow the same trend but those who complete the DS260 online form early in time have an advantage”

This devastation brings back memories of DV2012, when for the very first time the State Department decided to cancel the random selection for that year and run another one after 22,000 selectees already checked their electronic status online!

The cancellation at the time was provoked by a computer glitch that rendered the selection process not strictly random as required by law. The 22,000 selectees dragged the US State Department to court but they lost the legal battle.