In the Press: Trump administration suspends green-card lottery after Brown shooting
Recently, our Executive Director, Mary Choate, Esq., commented to The Washington Post on the impact of the suspension of the green-card lottery (Diversity Immigrant Visa program) and the expansion of travel bans, which now affect 39 countries. Mary highlighted the compounding pressure these changes place on our community:
“All this in combination is going to discourage people from coming here and create bad blood,” said Choate. “It’s one more nail in the coffin of a cascade of effects that makes an already hard system even harder.”
The Impact on Our Community
These policy shifts have a profound human cost. For example, CLIA is currently assisting an Afghan doctor who was forced to make the heartbreaking decision to leave his infant daughter behind with relatives because the system would not recognize her as part of his visa. With the subsequent elimination of family reunification programs and the banning of Afghan immigrants, the doors for such families are increasingly being shut.
The weight of these restrictions is reflected in our daily operations. CLIA's workload has increased by 200% since the beginning of the year as people desperately seek ways to protect themselves and find alternative paths for their loved ones.
Read the full story here: The Washington Post
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