Fact Check: How the US visa lottery really works amid Trump comments

President Donald Trump is expressing frustration with an immigration program that he says lets other countries nominate undesirable citizens for emigration to the US. That path to a life in the U. does not exist.

Trump mischaracterises the diversity visa lottery program regularly, most recently on Fox News on the weekend and most prominently in his State of the Union speech last month.


The only accurate part of his account tends to be that a lottery is involved and that the program is not based primarily on the skills of immigrants. Other countries have no say in how it operates and the lottery is not as random as he describes.