Judge Orders Trump Admin To Reopen 2027 Diversity Visa Lottery

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to open registration for the 2027 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program by Nov. 1.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta of the Southern District of California requires the State Department to announce the registration period no later than midnight ET Oct. 29, open a 30-day electronic entry window by midnight Nov. 1, and notify selectees by midnight Dec. 3.

The department must accept entries and process applications until the fiscal year 2027 visa allocation runs out, or Sept. 30, 2027, whichever comes first.

The program was suspended days after a Dec. 13 shooting at Brown University, which killed two students and injured nine. Officials said the suspect was granted entry to the United States under the program.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” then Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at the time. “At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”

Red Eagle Law, a California immigration firm, initially sued Rubio on Aug. 19, arguing the State Department’s failure to open the 2027 lottery was a violation of federal law.

The firm requested emergency relief to restart the program. Judge Ohta denied a temporary restraining order on Sept. 3, citing problems with timing.

She later heard arguments on a preliminary injunction, and then set an oral ruling for Oct. 14. The government had contended that statutory deadlines for running the program had already passed.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows nationals of certain countries with low rates of immigration to be granted lawful permanent residency (LPR) after an annual lottery.

The program allows for up to 55,000 individuals to receive LPR status after entering an annual lottery conducted by the State Department. The winning lots are apportioned across six regions of the world.

To apply, candidates are required only to have either a high school education or two years of work experience in a job that requires two years of training. Registration usually opens in early October and closes in early November.

The program was frozen during the pandemic, but in September 2020 a federal judge ordered the first Trump administration to resume it.

“There is no statutory requirement that every available diversity visa be issued each year,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his ruling. “But that does not mean that the State Department could effectively extinguish the diversity program for a given year by simply sitting on its hands and letting all pending diversity visa applications time out.”

Trump has long sought to scrap the diversity visa lottery, saying it brings “the worst of the worst” into the country.

In a separate case, a federal judge in August struck down a Trump administration policy that suspended immigrant visa issuance for applicants from 75 countries.

“Consular officers were ordered to refuse immigrant visas to nationals of the 75 designated countries, regardless of whether the consular officer had, following an individualized assessment, determined that the applicant was not likely to become a public charge and that the applicant was otherwise eligible for a visa,” U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas wrote.