California Appeals Court Rules on Diversity Visa Lottery

A California appeals court, with a liberal majority, has granted a win to the Trump administration by overturning a lower court’s decision. This earlier ruling had ordered the State Department to reopen its application window for the 2027 Diversity Visa lottery, a program that typically allows about 55,000 immigrants from low-immigration countries to enter each year.

In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta. This injunction had mandated the opening of the lottery after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in November that the acceptance of new applications would be delayed to “implement certain changes.” However, that application period ultimately never took place.

About a month later, the State Department paused the issuance of diversity visas indefinitely following a mass shooting at Brown University. This tragic event involved a Portuguese national who had received a lottery visa in 2017 and resulted in two deaths and nine injuries. The shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was additionally linked to the murder of an MIT professor just two days post the Brown University incident.

The Ninth Circuit has often challenged President Trump’s policies in the past, including decisions against his 2017 executive order restricting travel from primarily Muslim countries and a policy that denied asylum to immigrants crossing the southern border outside designated entry points.

Yet, in this case, the court found that the preliminary injunction from the lower court could not stand. They cited that the immigration law firm Red Eagle, which was representing individuals involved in the visa lottery process, lacked standing to pursue legal action against the federal government. The ruling indicated that the lottery program aimed to promote immigration, not serve as a revenue source for law firms.

The court elaborated, stating, “If Red Eagle Law were allowed to allege standing based upon its hypothetical or conjectural collateral injury, we would be opening the floodgates, allowing all lawyers to ‘roam the country in search of governmental wrongdoing.’”

Nevertheless, the ruling was based solely on procedural grounds and did not address whether the State Department had failed to comply with legal requirements. The court specifically noted, “We do not endorse the Department’s failure to open the lottery registration period.”

Abhishek Kambli, a former federal prosecutor, remarked that the decision by the liberal court was an obvious one. He pointed out that the plaintiff was a law firm that was not advocating for anyone in the diversity visa lottery, but rather for itself.

Trump has consistently opposed the Diversity Visa Lottery Program. During his January 2018 State of the Union address, he called for its termination, arguing for a merit-based visa allocation system. Earlier that month, he criticized the lottery during a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers at the White House, suggesting it allowed “the worst of the worst” to enter the country.

The eligibility list for the 2026 lottery included countries like Afghanistan, New Zealand, Ecuador, Iran, Uganda, Somalia, and Russia. This program was created to provide an additional pathway for individuals desiring visas, especially those who may not meet the usual criteria related to employment or family connections.