It’s the visa lottery with nine lives, or maybe even more.
The 2022 Diversity Visa Lottery is now accepting applications from eligible countries and that includes Ireland, the Republic and the North.
The lottery has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, but has managed to continue functioning nonetheless.
And while the number of Irish recipients has amounted to only 33 and 32 in the last two years respectively, the lottery stands at just about the only way an Irish person can apply on a general basis for legal entry to the United States.
In a release, the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers stated that it was urging Irish nationals who are interested in immigrating to the United States to enter the 2022 Diversity Visa Lottery.
Stated the CIIC release: “The DV Lottery is a congressionally mandated program that provides up to 55,000 individuals with immigrant visas to the United States. Lottery winners may be eligible to obtain Green Cards and become permanent legal residents of the U.S.
“The DV-2022 registration period opens at noon EDT on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 and runs until noon EDT on Tuesday, November 10, 2020.
“All information, including eligibility criteria and program instructions for DV-2022 can be found on the U.S. Department of State website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-instructions.html.
“Individuals planning to enter the DV Lottery need to remember the following: Entries are only submitted online via the U.S. Department of State website within the registration period at www.dvlottery.state.gov; There is no charge for submitting an entry; Entrants now need a valid, current passport from their country of origin to complete the online application.”
The release advised: “Remember to retain your confirmation number received after submission – it is needed to check entry status; Always seek reliable support! Find your local Irish center here: ciic-usa.org/find-your-local-irish-center; Be wary of fraudulent companies and 3rd party entities trying to take advantage of immigrants for monetary gain; Know that not everyone who is selected in the lottery will receive a green card, and 3rd parties cannot increase chances of a positive outcome.”
The CIIC release sated that it was “of note” that Ireland had the lowest number of entrants in the DV-2021 as recorded in the last 15 years. Additionally, there were half as many entries overall last round as there had been in previous years.
“There are limited pathways for Irish nationals to emigrate to the United States. The DV Lottery is an opportunity that should be taken greater advantage of,” said Aileen Leonard Dibra, CIIC Executive Director.
“As we always remind people, those individuals that are interested in coming to the U.S. should enter the DV Lottery each year. The process is free and completed online. There is nothing to lose. Do not miss your opportunity to enter. If you have questions, our centers throughout the United States are available to provide guidance.”
Only in corridors of power in London has the latest opinion poll on support for Scottish independence registered a modicum of shock to disturb the prevailing confusion.
The analysis of the results by Sir John Curtice contains only one small note of comfort for the Union cause.
A new poll from Ipsos MORI for STV has suggested that 58% now say that they would vote Yes in another independence referendum. Just 42% state that they would vote No, and thereby back staying in the Union. What conclusions can we draw? No previous poll has put ever support for independence so high.
More importantly this is the ninth poll in a row since June to put Yes ahead. On average, these polls have put Yes on 54%, No on 46%.
It is the first time in Scottish polling history that support for independence has consistently outstripped backing for staying in the Union.
However, we should be careful about drawing the conclusion from today’s poll that support for independence has now risen further.
A poll from Savanta ComRes released over the weekend, the interviewing for which took place at the same time as today’s headline grabbing poll from Ipsos MORI, put support for independence at 53%, one point down on the company’s previous poll in August.
We will need further evidence before we will know whether the higher level of support for Yes in today’s poll represents no more than the kind of random variation that we might expect in the polls given that Yes are well ahead, or whether it signals a further significant shift in favour of independence.
…For no ministry that actually cared about the United Kingdom’s long-term integrity would behave as this ministry has done. The recklessness would be breathtaking if it were not for the suspicion that it is, in fact, a product of scandalous indifference. Time and again, I have been told that the government ‘gets it’, that henceforth it will be paying attention, and every time this is revealed as a worthless commitment that doesn’t even rise to the level of a promise.
My postbag confirms the impact of this. Each week, and sometimes more frequently than that, I hear from people who never had to think about their no vote in 2014 but now find themselves contemplating their preferences should there be a second plebiscite on independence. Many of them would still vote no, but with markedly less enthusiasm than before; others suggest they are too depressed to vote at all; some find themselves surprised, and perhaps even a little alarmed, to discover they can imagine voting yes. Some have already changed their mind, deciding getting out is the only realistic way forward. These are company directors, farmers, lawyers, academics and if Boris Johnson is losing people like this — folk with plenty to lose from independence — then you may imagine how he’s faring with other kinds of voter.
No wonder it is now possible to find Scottish Tory politicians who will sigh as they pour themselves a late-night Laphroaig and confess that, miserably, it’s all over. Pessimism has always been an important part of the Tory sensibility but, right now, this pessimism is warranted. It is so even if the SNP is still unable to answer important but basic questions about the realities of independence. The first decade of the new state’s life would be astringent to say the least. But then the last ten years have been pretty ropey ones for the UK and that colours people’s views too.
For nearly a decade now, politicians and media figures in London have persistently underestimated both the appeal of independence and its possibility. It has been put in a box marked ‘unthinkable’ and so it need not be thought about. This complacency, this lack of imagination, has always been a significant problem for Unionism and yet, despite the obvious evidence before them, few Tory politicians have shown themselves prepared to grasp reality, let alone grapple with it.
Flag-waving is not the answer. Competent government in London and a prosperous United Kingdom is the best available response to this challenge. For a long, long time, independence has been a nice idea. If all other things were equal it would even be an attractive one. But all other things have never, quite, been equal and so the risks of independence have always been considered greater than the risks of Union. It might have some advantages but these would come at too high a cost.
Well, that calculation of risk and reward is changing. There has never been a time when ‘all things’ have ever looked so equal. That has certain obvious consequences and the opinion polls are merely reporting what is obvious on the ground.
For this is a three-legged crisis for Unionism. Covid is one leg and Johnson is another but the third, and most significant, leg is Brexit. It cannot be repeated too frequently that Brexit is the sole reason this argument has substance right now. No Brexit, no material change in circumstances that might justify revisiting the national question while the embers of 2014 still glow. Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP would still campaign for independence but they wouldn’t have any good argument for demanding a second referendum. Well, however disagreeable you may think it, they have a decent one now. (It remains decent even if you also think ‘once in a generation’ should mean something too.)
Once Brexit was pursued, and especially once it was decided to pursue it at all or any cost, some of this crisis became inevitable. For Brexit must happen even though two parts of the United Kingdom — Scotland and Northern Ireland — voted against it. But the manner in which Brexit is happening, with little regard for those who rejected it and still less interest in the privileges enjoyed by the devolved administrations, is placing the Union under renewed strain.
The detail is less important than the sentiment. Few people, I suspect, are truly exercised by the internal workings of the withdrawal agreement or, indeed, by the precise manner in which the Internal Market Bill may or may not impinge upon the devolved parliaments. But, to put it in architectural terms, they do care about the look of the post-Brexit house the government intends to build.
Perhaps this is a blip or a phase or just a passing flirtation. I would prefer it if this were the case but the numbers strongly suggest it is not.
Even now, most politicians at Westminster — and especially most so-called Conservative ones — do not get it. You might think the survival of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be considered a modestly important issue but plainly very few Tories at Westminster really think it is. So Douglas Ross was right to lambast his colleagues and it was miserably revealing that his speech received so little attention.
As he argued, correctly, if so-called Unionists do not care about the Union and if they mistakenly believe independence would come at little cost — psychological as well as civic — to England then they are both deluding themselves and helping to make the case for that independence. With friends like these, who needs the SNP?
There is something melancholy about all of this and a keening sense of Scottish Unionists being, as I have observed before, abandoned by the people they mistakenly considered their co-religionists. Verily, what do they know of the United Kingdom, who only England know?
Boris, Brexit and Covid is a combination of potent toxicity. Any two of those would have been dangerous; adding the third ingredient may prove lethal. If the United Kingdom dies, it may not do so on Boris Johnson’s watch but the conditions for its demise will have been created during his hapless spell at the helm.
Minister for the Union? What larks, eh?
Meanwhile the lockdowns in Scotland and Wales provide a sort of rehearsal for breakup
“ Reputed anti-Catholic and anti-Black bigots in Northern Ireland organize for Trump … The main organizer, Jolene Bunting, has distinguished herself by this statement:”I’m so sick of the poor Catholic bastards; they make me sick. I wish they would just go down to [southern] Ireland and then they can fly their flags and change the [Irish language] street sign down there.” She is also an alleged admirer of one of the many fanatical racist anti-Catholic haters in Northern Ireland—the late George Seawright (1951-1987) , whom she reputedly described as “a true Ulster loyalist.” Seawright distinguished himself by his infamous war-cry:”Burn all Catholics and their priests.”Will Trump repudiate such fanatical, bigoted support?—Fr. Sean Mc Manus
Bunting’s “Ulster-Scots for Trump” hits the road
Brendan Hughes. Irish News. Belfast. Saturday, October 10, 2020
A CONTROVERSIAL unionist ex-councilor’s trailer tour to support re-electing US president Donald Trump has hit the road.
Jolene Bunting had launched an online crowd-funder for her ‘Ulster-Scots for Trump’ campaign in which his supporters plan to tour Northern Ireland with a trailer.
The former Belfast councilor on Thursday evening posted an image on Twitter showing the “Trump trailer” in Carrickfergus.
The trailer displays an image of the US president on a large blue poster entitled ‘Ulster-Scots for Trump’.
It includes a list which reads: “Pro-life; pro-Brexit; pro-borders; pro-Christian; anti-globalist, anti-communist, anti-BLM [Black Lives Matter] and Antifa [short for “anti-fascist”, a loose affiliation of mostly far-left activists]; anti-climate and Covid alarmism.”
The poster concludes: “God bless Donald J Trump.”
Sharing the image, Ms. Bunting tweeted: “The ‘Trump trailer’ has hit the road!”
A video showing the construction of the trailer says supporters “will travel across Northern Ireland showing our support for President Trump”.
A crowdfunding page had included an email address for further enquiries under the name of Wayne Cummings, who is Ms. Bunting’s partner.
The Irish News contacted this email address for comment, but the reply read: “’Ulster-Scots for Trump’ has nothing to say to the lying mainstream media, you are FAKE-NEWS!!!”
Ms Bunting, who has previously caused controversy over her involvement with the far-right group Britain First, lost her seat on Belfast City Council in last year’s council elections.
In 2018, she received a four-month interim suspension from a council standards watchdog pending the outcome of an investigation into 14 complaints.
Her tweets in recent weeks have included a video promoting coronavirus conspiracy theories.
The US presidential election, in which the Republican Party’s Mr. Trump faces Democrat challenger Joe Biden, will take place on November 3.
A member of the notorious loyalist Glenanne Gang has been arrested on suspicion of making threats to kill the daughter of one of his victims.
Convicted killer Garfield Beattie was detained near Portadown in north Armagh on Saturday morning.
It is understood a number of electronic items were seized during a search of a property.
It emerged last night that the woman’s solicitor has now written to Secretary of State Brandon Lewis asking for Beattie’s licence to be revoked.
The Irish News understands the threat was received in the post early last week and police were then contacted.
Beattie was part of the Glenanne Gang, which included members of the RUC, UDR and UVF.
It was responsible for a sectarian murder campaign in the mid-1970s believed to have resulted in up to 120 deaths.
Former English police chief Jon Boutcher launched an investigation into the gang last year.
Beattie served 16 years behind bars for his part in three murders.
They included the killing of SDLP activist Denis Mullen (36) who was shot dead at his home near the Moy in September 1975.
He was also convicted for his part in the murder of Frederick McLoughlin (48) who died in June 1976 from injuries received after a gun attack at the Eagle Bar in Charlemont, near the Moy, the previous month.
The 48-year-old, from Benburb, was shot by a UVF murder squad as it made its escape following a no-warning bomb at another bar in the area, which claimed the lives of three people.
Another victim was Patrick McNeice (50) who was shot dead at his home in the Loughgall area of Co Armagh in July 1976.
It is understood Beattie, a former member of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve, is currently the subject of pending legal action taken by the daughter of one of his victims.
He recently wrote to the woman’s legal team and days later a threat was also received in the post at her home.
It is understood the threat was signed ‘East Tyrone Ulster Volunteer Force’.
The PSNI last night said that a 63-year-old man was arrested on Saturday on “suspicion of offences, including threats to kill”.
“The man was arrested in the wider Portadown area and has since been released to be reported to the Public Prosecution Service,” a spokesman said.
After his arrest in August 1976, he led police to an arms dump in north Armagh which included a sub machine gun, which had been stolen from a UDR base at Glenanne, in south Armagh, in 1971.
That gun was used in seven different gun attacks resulting in the deaths of 11 people, the first being Denis Mullen and the last Patrick McNeice.
He also led police to two other weapons and a quantity of ammunition.
Solicitor Peter Corrigan, of Phoenix Law, said his firm has written to Mr Lewis.
“We have written to the secretary of state to immediately ask for the revocation of Mr Beattie’s licence,” he said.
Yesterday at 6:37 AM · Press Statement By The Bloody Sunday March For Justice Committee. The fact that representatives of the biggest Nationalist party in the North travelled to Belfast to greet the commander in chief of the Parachute Regiment has come as a bomb-shell to many citizens of Derry — to members of the Bloody Sunday families in particular.It is astonishing that this should have happened within 24 hours of the families’ hopes of justice being dashed yet again. With just one exception, all of the members of Prince Charles’s regiment who took part in the Bloody Sunday massacre are to be let off the hook. At least, that’s the British establishment’s plan.What has happened is a demeaning betrayal. We march for the truth for 50 years, then the leader of the liars is made welcome in our midst!The Ballymurphy families will know what we mean.If the lies were over, if Prince Charles and other military commanders were at last to tell the truth and say sorry, he might be entitled to a little bit of respect. But he doesn’t have any respect for the people of Derry or for the Bloody Sunday dead.Prince Charles’ role in the Parachute Regiment isn’t ceremonial. The paras don’t do ceremony. There was nothing ceremonial about what happened around Rossville Street, Glenfada Park, Joseph’s Place, etc.Murder was done in the name of the State which Prince Charles is heir to. To shake his hand while the bereaved are still hurting is to bring shame on the city. The march towards truth and justice will continue for as long as it takes.
