Biden Launches Migrant Lottery for Venezuelan, Cuban Hopefuls

The US is adding a lottery to its sponsor-based immigration pathway for people from Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, hoping to entice more of them to apply through the system instead of flocking to the southwest border.

US officials previously considered applicants in the order in which they apply, placing thousands at the back of the line. Under the new provision, the US will randomly move half the applications each month to the top of the pile for consideration. The changes were outlined in a Department of Homeland Security notice posted Thursday.

Immigration lotteries have historically prioritized potential migrants who have ties to the US or skills employers need, although they have also been politically tinged. Former President Donald Trump often riled up crowds at rallies by criticizing a separate immigration lottery and tried to restrict it.

Migrants outside the Holding Institute shelter in Laredo, Texas, on May 15, 2021.

Photographer: Jonathan Alpeyrie/Bloomberg

The sponsor-based pathway lets US-based groups or individuals sponsor approved migrants from the four countries to live and work here for up to two years. Demand is “significantly higher” than the 30,000 spots available each month under the program, according to the department.

“We want to make sure folks continue to see this as the viable pathway that it is and do everything we can to prove that it is,” said Homeland Security spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández.

The sponsorship effort, paired with stricter consequences for migrants seeking to illegally cross into the US, is part of a broader strategy to dissuade individuals from the four countries from traveling to the southwest border.

The pathway relies on a 1952 law, passed in response to the Cold War, that lets federal officials accept migrants on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

A coalition of Republican-led states is suing the Biden administration to close the pathway. They argue that the program exceeds Biden’s authority as president. A trial is scheduled for June.