A woman reads documents about the United States in the waiting room of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

On a Tuesday night at an unsigned Internet cafe in the center of the Senegalese capital Dakar, more than a dozen people sat huddled together filling out a form.

Each year, the US green card lottery program attracts about 15 million people to register, of which less than 50,000 people, equivalent to about 0.3%, are granted green cards to stay in the US.

The review process is like a lottery full of chance.

The application process lasts one month, from October 18 to November 22.

At noon on May 15, millions of people around the world visited the US State Department website to find out if they were on the list selected for the final `bonus round`.

Ultimately, 50,000 `lottery winners`, with their wives and children, will be granted green cards to stay legally in the US.

`Thanks to the green card lottery program, I was able to live here, study law, and get married. I now have four beautiful children and have my own law firm,` said Olsi Vrapi, an immigrant originally from Albania.

14 years ago, when he applied for the random green card lottery program, Vrapi was an international student at the University of New Mexico.

The scene of a terrorist crash by a pickup truck in Manhattan, New York on October 31.

Controversial immigration program

At 3:05 p.m. on October 31, a pickup truck drove into the path for cyclists and pedestrians in New York, rolling over many victims, before crashing into a school bus parked nearby, causing

The suspect in the car crash was identified as Sayfullo Saipov, from Uzbekistan, who immigrated to the US in 2010. According to the investigator, Saipov was granted a green card to stay legally through a random lottery program and entered the country through a border gate.

During a government meeting on November 1, President Donald Trump said suspect Saipov was `the main point of contact for 23 other people entering the United States.`

`I will end this program,` Mr. Trump said during the meeting.

The green card lottery program, launched more than two decades ago at the request of the US Congress, operates on the principle of diversifying immigrants.

This program randomly selects green card recipients from citizens of all countries around the world, except for countries with high rates of immigration to the US such as Mexico, China and India.

The program had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, even before the crash.

Republicans try to eliminate the green card lottery program but always face opposition from Democratic lawmakers.