U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta has given the State Department until midnight tonight to announce the 2027 Diversity Visa registration period, after the administration let the congressionally mandated lottery lapse without ever opening entries.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta in the Southern District of California issued a preliminary injunction directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department to publicly announce the fiscal year 2027 registration period by midnight Eastern time tonight, October 15. The order also requires the department to open electronic entries by October 18 for a 30-day window, accept eligible applications, notify selectees, and process up to 55,000 visas under the normal rules until the allocation is used or the fiscal year ends next September.
This happened because the State Department never opened registration for the 2027 Diversity Visa program. The program, established by Congress in 1990, allocates up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year through a lottery for people from countries with historically low immigration rates to the United States.
In November 2025 the department said it was changing the entry process and would announce new dates "as soon as practicable." Those dates were never set. Registration did not open before the prior fiscal year ended on September 30, leaving no way for applicants to enter.
The Trump administration, through the State Department under Secretary Rubio, is responsible for the delay. The administration has long opposed the Diversity Visa program, and its push to pause the program cited security concerns after a December 2025 shooting at Brown University involving a suspect who allegedly entered the country through the program.
A California immigration firm, Red Eagle Law, sued, arguing that the failure to open registration was a de facto cancellation of a congressionally required program. Judge Ohta, a Biden appointee, ruled that the inaction was likely arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law under the Administrative Procedure Act.
"We won," Red Eagle Law founder Curtis Morrison told Courthouse News after the ruling.
The administration's position in court was that statutory timing rules made it too late to run the 2027 lottery once the previous fiscal year had closed. The court rejected that argument and ordered the program restarted on a compressed timeline.
The ruling remains subject to possible further legal action, and as of early Thursday the official announcement required by midnight had not yet appeared on the State Department site. Whether the administration complies, appeals, or both will decide the fate of 55,000 visas — and of a program the White House has tried for years to end on security grounds.
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