This article originally appeared in Al Jazeera.
Bert Bayou counts himself among the lucky ones.
He had completed his undergraduate studies in politics and international relations and was working for the United Nations’ World Food Programme in Ethiopia when his mother pestered him into applying for the Diversity Visa Lottery Programme.
In 2000, after entering for the first time, he “won”.
Then 23-year-old Bayou, seeing it as his best opportunity to pursue his graduate studies, decided to take the next step and apply for the visa to come to the United States.
“I was young,” Bayou told Al Jazeera. “I didn’t want to stay doing the same thing that I was doing.
“I really wanted to continue working on development projects and addressing poverty, and most of the international professionals that I knew working these jobs at a higher level had graduate degrees,” Bayou continued.
Created by the 1990 Immigration Reform Act, the Diversity Visa Programme (DVP) selects 100,000 applicants in a lottery who are then eligible to apply for a US residency visa. After being selected, the applicants go through the same application, screening and examination process as all prospective immigrants who come to the US. Only half complete the process and are issued Green Cards.