Kaenei

I'm one of those frustrated teens; full of pie-in-the-sky ideas, without the ability to make any of them happen. Without boring you all with teary stories of how I can't join the excellent friends and such I've got in the US, mainly becuase I don't hold a degree, or any other chance of applying for family/etc visas, I've a question on the Green Card Lottery.

I see the United Kingdom isn't eligible, which I have no problem with, but why is N. Ireland, as part of the UK, eligible?

At first I thought this becuase each of the parts of the UK are counted individually for the 50,000 limit, but this can't be right as the entirety of UK Overseas territories are excluded, including those who couldn't hope to send a fraction of the 50,000 limit to the US in legal immigration. Since it must be the UK as a whole, why do the Northern Irish recieve preferential treatment over the Scottish, for example? [Which I am]

Chandler

I speak from a position of weakness, but could it be because there is a strong lobby over here for Ireland being 'united'. with those in the North being merely a repressed minority?

I await the sling and arrows

Kaenei

If that were true, I'd be extremely disappointed; I don't see why us Scots, who've a damn sight more autonomy than the N. Irish in both a political and legal sense shouldn't recieve the same benefit - But still, I've been looking for a cast-iron answer to this question and cant' find anything online to tell me why N. Ireland is exempt.

Seems as far as I can tell, a pretty sweet quirk for them.

fatbrit

Kennedy, Eduardo.

Kaenei

Excuse me? I don't understand that.

fatbrit

A well-known senator from a very rich political family who claims Irish Catholic ancestry. You're looking for logic where it doesn't exist. The DV was politics, pure and dirty. Although I like the ideals of it...

Kaenei

Really? I admit, I'm more than a little disappointed. I was hoping you'd come up with some obscure legislation or something that would give me more to accept than crookedness.

Ah well, looks like a life in the States is just out of my reach - Cheers anyway gents.

fatbrit

Depends how much you want it...

Counting on the DV is not much of a plan A, more like a plan Z.

Wintersong

Just a thought, but you come across as being an intelligent kind of person... have you thought about applying to study in the US if you have the funds?

Kaenei

I wish sorely I could, but I've no way of getting together the thousands of thousands of dollars needed to pay for a course in advance - I assume also the student visa's [J-1 or F-1 I believe] don't entitle you to work whilst you're doing the course.

I'm twenty years old, from a single-parent family in a bit of a rundown area; there's just no money for such an expensive outing. Even if I had the money for the course, there's no way to afford expenses and such.

Wintersong

Is there any chance you could find a company to sponsor you?

I don't know if it's possible, I'm just throwing some suggestions into the air

Failing that, marry an American girl

Kaenei

I doubt I'd find a company to sponsor me - Without a degree I'm of no use to them and I can't see why they'd sponsor me over an American living in the same continent as their base of operations.

On the marriage front, I'd need cosmetic surgery to make myself less than ugly in the extreme.

Duncan Roberts

I would take a guess it's because N. Ireland is not part of Great Britain.

elfman

You might be surprised how far a British accent will get you, regardless of looks.

Kaenei

You're wrong - N. Ireland is part of [to give it its full title] "The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland", consisting of the northern counties that failed to secede from the previous "United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland" created by the 1801 act of Union that formed the Irish Free State in 1920. Northern Ireland is not only represented on the Union flag but returns MPs to Westminster Parliament to represent its people.

Precisely how is it not, in every legal and political sense, part of Great Britain?