GREEN CARD ‘JOY’: NUMBER OF U.S. DIVERSITY VISA APPLICANTS IN ARMENIA REVEALS A SORRY TREND
By Siranuysh Gevorgyan
ArmeniaNow
Society | 03.10.12 | 15:15
An annual presentation of U.S. Diversity Visa facts and figures this
week revealed that nearly 100,000 citizens of Armenian had applied
for the lottery that grants the winners the right to immigrate to
the United States.
Nearly one in 100 (or 998 Armenians) got to be the randomly selected
winners of what are better known as Green Cards, U.S. Consul in
Armenia George Lynn announced on Tuesday.
In 2011, 25,000 and 53,000 people applied for Green Card lottery
accordingly from neighboring Azerbaijan and Georgia that have
populations of some 9 million and 4.5 million, respectively, (as
compared to Armenia’s 3 million or so).
According to the U.S. embassy in Yerevan, most Armenians obtain their
immigrant visas to the U.S through the Diversity Visa Program or via
family ties. The number of applicants from Armenia in 2011 grew by
about 6,000 over the previous year.
Arman Sahakyan, a 24-year-old citizen of Armenia with a degree in law,
is one the lucky winners of the U.S. government lottery. Now he has
to pass an interview at a local consular section. Sahakyan says if he
passes the final stage he will be very happy to leave for the United
States in 2013.
“I am sure as a young man I will have better opportunities in America,”
Sahakyan tells ArmeniaNow.
Armenian sociologists and ethnographers do not share Sahakyan’s joy.
They think that 100,000 is a “dreadful” number of applicants for
a foreign country’s visa for a tiny country like Armenia that has
a population of less than 3 million. A recent Gullup study showed
that about 39 percent of Armenians wished to leave Armenia. The 2010
survey conducted by the leading international pollster revealed that
Armenia had the highest percent of citizens willing to emigrate among
10 post-Soviet countries.
Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan says she is “horrified” by the number
of Green Card applicants.
“According to the United Nations data, Armenia is an aging country,
so the demographic structure is already changed. The number of elderly
people in Armenia, which is more than 400,000, is disproportionate to
the population of other age groups. If we add to this also the fact
that besides elderly people we also have a large number of people
requiring social care, which is conditioned by the large number of
people who became disabled in the 1988 earthquake, had stress-caused
diseases, the number of refugees and needy people, then we can say
that not only the demographic structure, but also the social structure
of Armenia are endangered,” says Kharatyan.
At the same time the specialist believes that the potential number
of U.S. Green Card seekers may be much higher, simply not all have
access to technologies or knowledge to apply through what has become
an online-only process.
She also points out that a lot of people in Armenia get their visas
via family relationships or get working visas, plus there is a state
immigration program to Russia and there are thousands of people who
leave Armenia without any visa or immigration programs to countries
with which Armenia has visa-free regimes.
Outward migration has been a major problem in Armenia ever since the
country gained independence in 1991. The dwindling of the population
appeared to slow down in the past decade, only to pick up pace again
in recent years.
The negative balance of those arriving in and departing from Armenia
in the first six months of this year was reported at more than 83,000.
While migration authorities say the number will shrink significantly by
the end of the year conditioned by the return of some seasonal workers,
they still have to acknowledge that Armenia will probably have in the
tens of thousands fewer permanent residents by next January than it
had a year before.