When Anna Guniya saw on the Web site of the Department of State that she had won a lottery for a visa to live in the United States, she promptly refused a job where she lives in Moscow and made plans to see his parents one last time to say goodbye.
"The moment I opened the lottery notification I said, ' Oh my God! ' "Mrs. Guniya said Wednesday by telephone from the Russian capital, speaking in English almost fluently."Still can't explain to you the entire spectrum of emotions. Since my own childhood was my dream to live in the country of freedom, where everyone, all nationalities, can live. "
But Ms. Guniya bags never hers. After the State Department posted warnings in the first days of may, advising more than 22,000 foreigners around the world that they had won the chance to become permanent residents of the United States, the Department has posted another warning on 13 may, canceling the results of the lottery and annul the winners, citing a "computer programming problem".
Now Ms. Guniya, 23, a Russian citizen, sits on your computer in Moscow at all hours running a Facebook page called 22 thousand tears, where thousands of people are communion on their hopes, suddenly raised and dashed so suddenly. Aspiring immigrants are sharing their disappointment but also seek reparation. On Monday, they Filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Washington, seeking to force the State Department to return to the first results of the lottery and restore your chance of visas.
State Department officials expected the concise message posted on the computer failure would bring a peaceful end to the patched Lottery selection. "The results were not valid," the message says, "because they did not represent a fair and random selection of operators, as required by law." A new lottery drawing was announced for July 15.
But in the era of social media, foreigners who were frowned found another on the Internet at together. Countries like Ukraine, Nigeria and Egypt, they have placing Skype calls to legislators in Congress and the American media flooding news websites with pleas for help. Under a separate link, more than 18,000 of them have joined a record with your contact information.
They even overloaded the comments in the State Department page on Facebook. "We welcome the opinion of people, but you're taking all basically about the site," an administrator posted there plaintively. "We have other issues that we are trying to promote, as the safety and well-being of American citizens."
Following a complaint letter from his lawyer, Kenneth white of Los Angeles, Inspector-General of the Department of State said he would analyze the flaw in the lottery.
The State Department runs an annual Diversity Visa Lottery to offer permanent resident visas, known as green cards, to foreigners from countries which have sent some immigrants to the United States. Because the American immigration system is based on family ties, people from countries with more immigrants already here, as Mexico and the Philippines, have a better chance to win green cards, for which there is an annual limit.
The lottery chooses randomly a range of 100,000 candidates to proceed to the next step in the process, with 55,000 visas granted each year. State Department officials said that about 19 million people around the world submitted applications electronics during the period of 30 days in the fall.
With the new software used this year, David Donahue, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for visa services, said officials found that 90 per cent of foreigners had been chosen by lot who had applied in the first two days of the registration period.
"The entire pool of candidates would have been unfairly disadvantaged," said Rosemary Macray, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the Department. "The error was found and corrected, and let's move forward with a new drawing that will be in full compliance with the law".
Ms. Guniya said that the reversal was crushing because she had hoped to find a place that she could feel at home in the United States. She said that she was born in Abkhazia, Republic of Georgia, but fled to Russia with her parents when she was a young and war broke out. She said she never felt comfortable in Russia.
"Living in the United States would mean no more displacement, no more problems because of who I was," she said.
Armande Gil, 42, who is from France, said that the loss of your opportunity for a green card means that she might have to abandon a career as a psychologist that she built more than 13 years living in the United States. Your temporary work visa is about to expire.
"It seems that I'm not a foreigner, how belong here," said Ms. Gil, who lives in Miami and has worked in hospitals there. If she has to return to France, she said, she will have to start again and get his license to practice. "I would feel completely helpless," she said.
Some people who commented on the Facebook site of the Department of State had not been chosen in the first draw. "WOW great news. So, I still have the chance to be selected. I wish that my ll luck be good at the moment, "said Nazmul Hasan.
Ms. Macray said that the winners of first round lottery should have been more cautious. "We are very sorry for the disappointment, but we have always said that you should wait until you have your visa in hand before making changes to radical lifestyle," she said.
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