A court temporarily halts the resumption of Green Card lottery.
The temporary block means the Diversity Visa program, which is also known as the Green Card lottery, will not open by November 1. This is another legal setback for the Diversity Visa Program 2027 but Red Eagle Law, the immigration law firm that filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Marco Rubio in August, said they would move forward with other litigation to challenge the State Department’s failure to carry out the DV program. August 2026: The State Department announced another pause on issuing diversity visas, following a court order that had ended the earlier pause. October 2026: A federal district judge ordered the State Department to reopen DV-2027 registration. October 2026: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the government’s request to temporarily suspend the lower court’s order.
A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday blocked an order that required the Trump administration to reopen the Diversity Visa lottery. The order came as the government requested an injunction staying the previous order, under which the program would have opened.
Because the appeals court has stayed that requirement, the State Department is not required to open DV-2027 registration by November 1. The appeal against the district court’s preliminary injunction is still pending.
The stay is a temporary one on the ground that the law firm did not have the legal right to bring the challenge. People who would be affected should approach the court as the Green Card lottery was created to encourage immigration from countries with low US immigration rates, not to generate business for immigration law firms. The judges also pointed out that the firm had not brought the case on behalf of any prospective lottery applicants.