Federal Judge Orders State Department to Open Diversity Visa Lottery Registration
A federal judge has instructed the State Department to begin registration for the 2027 diversity visa lottery. U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta, appointed by Biden and who immigrated from South Korea at the age of six, issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday. This directive compels Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the department to conduct the green card lottery according to a timeline set by the court. The lawsuit was initiated by an immigration firm based in Southern California.
The State Department is required to announce the registration period within this week. It must also establish a 30-day window for electronic submissions, which needs to be completed by October 18, and notify the selected applicants by November 19. Following these steps, the department will need to process the awarded visas until the 2027 quota is exhausted or until the fiscal year concludes next September.
The diversity visa program, often referred to as the green card lottery, allocates up to 50,000 immigrant visas annually to individuals from countries that traditionally send fewer immigrants to the United States. This program was established by Congress back in 1990.
This ruling marks a notable shift for Judge Ohta. Just weeks prior, she had turned down an emergency request from the same immigration firm, expressing doubts about her authority to mandate the reopening of the program. “You’re asking me to demand that the government restart this program,” she remarked during that earlier hearing.
The lawsuit was filed in July by Red Eagle Law against Rubio, citing the department’s failure to launch the 2027 registration. The firm argued that the inaction was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law,” asserting that it had lost clients as a result, given their focus on lottery applicants.
Government attorneys contended that the firm had delayed too long, noting that the statutory deadline for running the program had already passed. They maintained that this left the court without a legal option to order a reopening, describing the situation as a “de facto cancellation.”
The lottery has been suspended since December, following a pause initiated by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after it was discovered that the Brown University shooter had entered the country via the program in 2017. The State Department resumed issuing diversity visas in August under a separate court directive, and another federal judge in Northern California has found that the department delayed processing in a related case.
The order attracted a wave of skeptical reactions online, particularly under a post by Josh Gerstein. Commenters questioned whether a judge has the authority to direct the executive branch concerning an administrative program, with some focusing on the judge’s name who made the ruling.
