By MARY COLEMAN
Jasmin Farmer, a former BYU student, entered the lottery just to see if she’d win.
And she did. Out of thousands of applicants, Farmer won.
"[I] applied for it just for fun, and I was going to see what happened, and I actually won," she said.
The prize was something many foreigners would love to have — a green card that would provide a chance to come to America to work or raise a family.
Farmer received her green card by entering the Diversity Visa Lottery, also known as the Green Card Lottery, in November 2005. She was a senior in high school in Germany who traveled to the U.S. for the first time with her English class.
"That’s when I started loving the states, and I always wanted to come back," Farmer said. "I thought to study here would be a good opportunity, especially at BYU, which is a great school."
Her cousin, a frequent visitor to the U.S., told Farmer about the green card and the lottery, and suggested she apply for it.
A green card, known formally as a Permanent Resident Card, is an identification card providing proof that foreign immigrants are legally permitted to reside in the U.S.
In the green card lottery, individuals send in an application but only 50,000 people are chosen to receive a green card. According to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Web site, the individual who receives the green card may bring their spouse and any unmarried children under 21 years old.
The Web site lists several qualifications that must be met before an individual applies for the lottery. Most importantly, their native country must be eligible for the lottery. Countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years are not eligible. The individual must also have a high school diploma or two years of work experience.
Even after the government chooses eligible people, there are a number of steps a person must take before they receive the green card.
After receiving a letter in the mail, Farmer had to gather several documents before an interview and doctor’s appointment three hours away in Frankfurt, Germany. She remembers being nervous about the interview because she couldn’t forget any document or else she would need to reschedule her appointment.
One of the documents was her high school diploma, a three-page document she had to have officially translated into English. The translation took a few weeks and cost about $200, Farmer said. She also had to pay an $800 fee for necessary authorizations before she received her green card.
The rest of the process was easier once she had all the documents, she said.
She immigrated to the U.S. in January 2007, when she transferred to BYU, and she received her green card a few months later.
While Farmer "won" her green card, many foreigners must apply for their green card and go through a tedious and intense process that may take years.
Most foreign students at BYU are here on student visas. However, once married to a U.S. citizen, they must apply for permanent residency.
Jonathan and Christine Ricks found themselves in that situation. Christine Ricks, a senior from Germany, came to BYU after two years of study at the University of Cologne in Cologne, Germany.
"I didn’t like studying at the University of Cologne," she said. "I didn’t really feel like I was enjoying my studies like I should be."
She transferred to BYU with a student visa in the fall of 2006 and moved into the German House in the Foreign Language Housing. It was there she met Jonathan Ricks, a BYU graduate from Provo, and the two married in June 2008. Once she was married, Christine Rick’s immigration status changed.
According the BYU’s International Services Web site, when a student marries a U.S. citizen, they are no longer considered a non-immigrant but are now a prospective immigrant. They are required to change their status by applying for permanent residency.
The Ricks began the green card application in September 2008 and sent it in around the beginning of March 2009. Both said they found the process confusing, time consuming and expensive.
Christine Ricks had to have her birth certificate translated as part of that process. She was able to find a German professor on campus who could do it for her, which saved her time and money. Tax receipts, payroll stubs and passport size pictures were just some of the things the Ricks had to collect for the application.
The couple visited Kim Buhler, a local immigration lawyer who gives free half hour legal consultations to students. During the consultation, Buhler answered any questions about the application process. The Ricks decided to pay Buhler’s hourly fee to have her look over the application, during which Buhler clarified some legal instructions.
"There’s so much you don’t know," Jonathan Ricks said. "I wouldn’t be 100 percent comfortable just sending in documents had I not ever talked to anybody just because there’s no knowing what you left out."
Once they send in the green card application, applicants may not travel outside the U.S. unless they receive necessary travel authorizations. They forfeit their application if they do so.
There is no guarantee that once a person receives a green card they will remain in the U.S. According to the Immigration Support Web site, any person who is not a citizen can be deported.
Buhler said there are common reasons why a person would be at risk for deportation. Criminal activity is just one of them.
"Anytime you commit a crime of moral turpitude that has a sentence of more than six months, you have the risk of being deported," she said.
The Ricks and Farmer both said they found the green card application process strenuous and difficult to complete on their own.
"I was kind of mad because they weren’t flexible at all," Farmer said, referring to making her appointment in Frankfurt. "It’s kind of hard to communicate with anyone in the consulate."
Buhler said she thinks the process could be made easier, but realizes that the difficulty serves its purpose.
"I think America is a country of order and rules, and so [the government is] trying to make sure the process of immigration is orderly so that we can take care of our own country," she said.
She said the government wants to make sure the assimilation process goes well for immigrants and that jobs and housing are available to the immigrants. The government also wants to make sure people marry for the right reasons, Buhler said. This is why newly-married immigrants only receive a two-year green card. After two years, they may apply for the regular 10-year green card.
"They want to evaluate the marriage to make sure that the people who married [did so] for the right reasons and not to give a foreign national a green card," Buhler said.
She suggested applicants read the instructions carefully and not just listen to what other people have said.
"Realize that every case is a separate case, and you can’t apply somebody else’s logic or reasoning onto your own case," she said. "What worked for someone else may not work for you."
When Farmer talks to her immigrant friends who are applying for green cards, she said she realizes how challenging the traditional process is.
"It [makes] me appreciate it even more," she said. "I’m really glad I could take that shortcut of just winning it."
