Court orders State Department to issue additional diversity visas

A federal court has ordered the State Department to issue an additional 9,095 immigrant visas to winners of the 2020 Diversity Visa Lottery.

Key Points:

• In a ruling last year, the court ordered the State Department to reserve 9,095 diversity immigrant visas to be issued after the normal Sept. 30 deadline. The court has now ordered the agency adjudicate applications for those visas.
• The court found that the State Department incorrectly used former President Trump’s immigrant travel ban restrictions to stop processing visas for lottery winners.

Additional Information: The ruling requires the Department to process diversity visas randomly until the reserved 9,095 visas have been issued; however, the court left it to the parties to negotiate a reasonable timeframe within which the Department must issue the reserved visas.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice group. For additional information, please contact berryapplemanleiden@bal.com.

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