A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to resume the 2027 Diversity Visa lottery, ending a de facto suspension of the program. U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta issued a preliminary injunction requiring the State Department to open registration by November 1, 2026, following a lawsuit challenging the government’s failure to launch the annual process.
Judge Ohta’s Injunction and the 2027 Registration Timeline
U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta of the Southern District of California issued a preliminary injunction on October 14, 2026, compelling the State Department to restart the Diversity Visa program. The ruling requires the department to process applications for up to 55,000 visas until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2027, or until the allocation is exhausted.
JUST IN: Judge Jinsook Ohta (Biden/CASD) orders State Department to commence diversity visa program for FY 2027 and notify winners by Nov. 19. Doc: https://t.co/kgUdHACTdl
While the initial court order sought an earlier start, the parties reached a joint agreement to extend the deadlines. According to the revised schedule, the State Department must announce registration dates by October 29, 2026, and open the electronic entry window no later than November 1, 2026. The registration period will remain open for 30 days, with the notification of selected participants expected by December 3, 2026. Created by Congress through the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Diversity Visa program grants up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to qualified candidates hailing from nations that traditionally experience minimal rates of immigration to America. Under data from previous cycles, the selection figures for various nations included 3,708 potential applicants from Tajikistan, 3,754 from Uzbekistan, 3,324 from Kyrgyzstan, 2,723 from Kazakhstan, and 2,542 from Turkmenistan.
Red Eagle Law’s Challenge to Administrative Inaction
This means that when George Herbert Walker Bush made it the law in 1990, the Trump administration can’t just ignore the laws they don’t like.
The government had countered that the delay in the process made it impossible to conduct the lottery within the statutory timeline. However, Judge Ohta found that the firm was likely to succeed on its claims, concluding that the failure to open registration had effectively suspended the program without sufficient explanation. Curtis Morrison, an attorney representing Red Eagle Law L.C., stated that the administration attempted to delay the program until it could argue it was too late to implement.
State Department Policy and Visa Issuance Hurdles
The 2027 lottery faced significant uncertainty prior to the court’s intervention. In November 2025, the State Department announced that it was making changes to the DV-2027 entry process
and would communicate registration dates later, but never opened the portal. Furthermore, the administration had previously paused all diversity visa issuances on August 31, 2026, while reviewing screening and vetting procedures. President Donald Trump has opposed the program going back to his first term in office, and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
The department generally does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
Even with the court-ordered resumption of registration, prospective applicants face a compressed timeline for the 2027 visa year, which spans from October 1, 2026, to September 30, 2027. Selection in the lottery does not guarantee a visa, as applicants must still satisfy eligibility requirements, undergo document verification, and complete interviews. Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that a policy memorandum had been released by Citizenship and Immigration Services directing the majority of foreign nationals pursuing permanent residency to seek their green cards from abroad via consular processing.