In President Joe Biden’s first full Fiscal Year in office, his administration admitted to the United States nearly 63,000 legal immigrants on green cards from countries once placed on a travel ban list for their involvement with terrorism.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data for Fiscal Year 2022 gives insight into the volume of legal immigration to the U.S. from countries that former President Donald Trump had placed on a travel ban list because they either did not share critical national security data or were found to harbor and sponsor terrorists.
Biden, in January 2021, ended the travel ban.
Those travel countries, by 2020, were Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, North Korea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, and Kyrgyzstan.
From October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022, Biden brought nearly 63,000 legal immigrants from the travel ban countries to the U.S. on green cards — about 7,300 of which arrived as chain migrants, while more than 4,300 arrived through the Diversity Visa Lottery.
Chain migration is the national immigration policy that allows a naturalized American citizen to sponsor an unlimited number of foreign relatives, beyond immediate family members, for green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S.
The Diversity Visa Lottery randomly rewards green cards to about 55,000 foreign nationals from a multitude of countries every year, solely on the basis that they will diversify American society.
In Fiscal Year 2022, alone, more than 2,000 chain migrants arrived in the U.S. from Yemen after securing green cards only because their foreign relatives are naturalized American citizens. Likewise, about 480 Yemeni citizens secured green cards through the Diversity Visa Lottery.
Nationals from Iran, which has been accused of aiding Hamas in its recent attacks on Israel, scored 9,400 green cards in Fiscal Year 2022 — including more than 1,600 who arrived as chain migrants and more than 980 who arrived through the Diversity Visa Lottery.
This same fiscal year, Biden’s administration gave more than 3,200 green cards to nationals from Syria, which remains on the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Of those rewarded green cards, about 720 came to the U.S. as chain migrants and over 150 arrived through the Diversity Visa Lottery.
As war has broken out in Israel, Trump has vowed to reinstate the travel ban if elected president and has repeatedly opposed chain migration and the Diversity Visa Lottery.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey, the only one to ask likely voters their views on national immigration policy every month, shows huge support for ending chain migration, while prior polls showed the majority of Americans want to do away with the Diversity Visa Lottery.
For example, about 6-in-10 likely U.S. voters say they want naturalized American citizens to only be allowed to sponsor their spouses or minor children for green cards. In January 2018, about 3-in-5 likely U.S. voters told Pulse Opinion pollsters they wanted to see the Diversity Visa Lottery eliminated altogether.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
