WASHINGTON -- For a few joyful days, more than 20,000 people around the world thought they literally had hit the lottery and won a chance to come and live legally in the United States.

Oops, the State Department said Friday, May 13.

There was a computer glitch, so they're going to have to do the annual visa lottery again.

The decision reopens competition for 50,000 wild-card visas for people who otherwise would have little hope of qualifying. About 15 million had applied, so it's good news for many people who thought they had lost.

But the glitch, which the State Department blamed on an in-house programming error, dashes the hopes of people like Max, a 28-year-old German man. He had recently checked a department website and found what he'd hoped for: Out of a random drawing with overwhelmingly long odds, he was one of the lucky few who might get one of the visas.

"It's like you won $100,000, and then they just take it away from you and it's gone," said Max, who would give only his first name for fear that full identification might jeopardize his chances in future applications.

The State Department apologized. "We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disappointment this problem might have caused."

The drawing, which the State Department calls the Diversity Visa Lottery, is an annual free-for-all established by Congress in 1994 to increase the number of immigrants from the developing world and from countries with traditionally low rates of immigration to the United States. Applicants do not have to have the usual family or employer sponsor.

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2011/05/computer_glitch_fools_20000_im.html

that computer glitch bad o

some of the luck people that have been given go even faint to hear that

i think sef make we leave all this USA, Uk wahala, make you people they migrate to other countries, But me i no go leave the uk now o has whether i like am or i know no like am i have to join my partner in uk