Sponsors (54)
Repeals the statutory Diversity Visa (lottery) category and updates the Immigration and Nationality Act to fix cross‑references.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the diversity immigrant program.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by Mike Collins · Last progress February 12, 2025
The bill simplifies immigration statutes and reduces false expectations by eliminating the Diversity Visa category, but it removes a low‑cost, diversity‑enhancing pathway to permanent residence—disadvantaging prospective immigrants (especially from DV‑dependent countries and low‑income applicants) while imposing modest implementation burdens on agencies.
Immigrants who might have relied on the Diversity Visa lottery will have clearer expectations about available immigration pathways because the DV category and its lottery will no longer be counted on as a route to visas.
State and federal immigration agencies (State, DHS, USCIS) will face simpler statutory cross‑references and slightly reduced legal/administrative complexity because an unused/contested visa category is removed.
Immigrants who would have been eligible under the Diversity Visa program will lose a direct pathway to lawful permanent residency starting Oct 1, 2025.
Immigrants from countries that primarily relied on the DV lottery will face fewer opportunities or longer waits to immigrate, reducing geographic and demographic diversity in U.S. immigration flows.
Low‑income individuals who used the DV route as a low‑cost path to permanent residence may incur higher costs or turn to more expensive or precarious alternatives, increasing personal economic burdens.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Eliminates the Diversity Visa (DV) immigrant lottery by removing the statutory subsection that creates the diversity immigrant category and updates the Immigration and Nationality Act to fix cross‑references and conforming language. The bill makes technical and redesignation changes across several immigration provisions and sets an effective date of October 1, 2025. The change narrows one pathway for family- and regionally-based immigrant admissions by ending the diversity lottery and adjusting related visa category references; it is primarily a statutory repeal and technical cleanup rather than a new program or funding measure.