{"id":1817,"date":"2016-10-21T19:22:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arabiangcis.org\/english\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2016-10-21T19:22:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:22:36","slug":"the-u-s-may-be-the-great-satan-in-iran-but-some-still-want-to-win-the-u-s-visa-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/news\/the-u-s-may-be-the-great-satan-in-iran-but-some-still-want-to-win-the-u-s-visa-lottery\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. may be the &#8216;Great Satan&#8217; in Iran, but some still want to win the U.S. visa lottery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>L.A. Times<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nIn Tehran, the ritual is becoming as familiar as the \u201cDeath to America\u201d chants at Friday prayers.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s the yearly rush to enter a lottery for the chance to immigrate to the United States.<br \/>\n\u201cI want to experience a new life in the U.S. Why not?\u201d said Milad Nazari, a spiky-haired 29-year-old working at a sleepy florist in downtown Tehran.<br \/>\n\u2018Death to America\u2019? I don\u2019t care. The U.S. is the most powerful country \u2026 so why shouldn\u2019t I take my chance in the lottery?\u201d<br \/>\nThis month the State Department opened a five-week window for visa applications from citizens of countries that historically have had low rates of immigration to the United States.<br \/>\nThe annual Diversity Visa lottery selects 50,000 winners who, along with their spouses and children under 21, can obtain green cards and become permanent U.S. residents. Last year 9.4 million people and 5 million family members from more than 200 countries sought visas under the program.<br \/>\nThose numbers included nearly 500,000 Iranians and 432,000 spouses and children, among the most of any country, though a slight decrease from 2014. About 5,000 Iranians were selected for visas; only Cameroon and Liberia had more winners.<br \/>\nEntries from Iran have risen sharply from 150,000 in 2007, reflecting both Iranians\u2019 enduring fascination with the United States \u2013 despite official propaganda labeling the U.S. the \u201cGreat Satan\u201d \u2013 and worsening prospects for the middle class in a country ravaged by economic sanctions.<br \/>\n\u201cI have worked hard but not been able to save enough,\u201d said Naser Zaeim, manager of a printing house in Tehran.<br \/>\nStanding under a printing machine and wiping his greasy hands, Zaeim, 45, said he had missed previous lotteries but planned to apply before this year\u2019s Nov. 7 deadline. (Winners are granted visas starting in 2018.)<br \/>\nAs a young man Zaeim spent two years as an unskilled laborer in Japan, where he saved enough to buy a small apartment. When he was deported to Iran, his fortunes faltered.<br \/>\n\u201cI see no future here for my three children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>L.A. Times In Tehran, the ritual is becoming as familiar as the \u201cDeath to America\u201d chants at Friday prayers. It\u2019s the yearly rush to enter a lottery for the chance to immigrate to the United States. \u201cI want to experience a new life in the U.S. Why not?\u201d said Milad Nazari, a spiky-haired 29-year-old working [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[821,822,818,12,820,823,824,28,819,69,825],"class_list":["post-1817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-death-to-america","tag-friday","tag-great-satan","tag-iran","tag-lottery","tag-nazari","tag-state-department","tag-tehran","tag-u-s-visa","tag-united-states","tag-zaeim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}