DV-2027 Is in Jeopardy Again: Appeals Court Halts Lottery Opening

In our September 23 report, we left the central question unanswered: will DV-2027 happen at all? Over the next five weeks, the answer changed twice. First, a federal court ordered the Trump administration to hold the lottery and imposed firm deadlines. Then, on October 29, the appeals court stayed that order. Registration—which the State Department had been ordered to announce by the end of October 29 and open no later than November 1—will not open after all.

This is not a final decision on the merits. Congress has not repealed the Diversity Visa program. But as of the evening of October 29, 2026, the situation is this: unless a new court order is issued or the State Department begins complying with the law on its own, DV-2027 will not take place.

This article reflects the situation following the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued on October 29, 2026.

At first, the court told the administration: the law must be enforced

On October 14, U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta of the Southern District of California granted Red Eagle Law’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The court issued its written reasoning on October 19 and clarified the timetable on October 21.

The district court’s decision left no room for convenient bureaucratic fog. By failing to open registration, the State Department had effectively canceled the program for fiscal year 2027 even though Congress continues to require that it be conducted every year. The court found the department’s inaction arbitrary and ordered it to resume the program.

The schedule was exceptionally specific: announce the registration period by midnight Eastern Time on October 29, open the application window no later than November 1 for at least 30 days, and announce the selection results no later than December 3. Visa issuance for selected applicants was to continue through September 30, 2027.

The administration appealed and asked Judge Ohta to stay her order. She refused. The government then went directly to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On October 29, the appeals court hit pause

The appeals court granted the government’s emergency motion and stayed the injunction while the appeal proceeds. The ruling immediately relieved the State Department of its obligation to meet the October 29, November 1, and December 3 deadlines.

The reason matters. The panel did not say that the administration has the right to destroy DV-2027 through silence. To the contrary, all three judges wrote that the State Department had offered no explanation for failing to open registration and had effectively canceled the program. The court expressly stated that it did not condone that inaction.

The order was stayed because of the plaintiff. Red Eagle Law is a law firm, not a prospective lottery applicant. In the panel’s view, the firm’s financial interest in gaining future clients does not fall within the interests that the Diversity Visa statute was designed to protect. The firm therefore is unlikely to have a cause of action under the Administrative Procedure Act. Judge N. Randy Smith went further in a separate opinion: he concluded that the firm had not even established constitutional standing because its possible future revenue depended on too long a chain of assumptions.

An independent court is not required to give us the rulings we want

This case offers a remarkably clear look at how judicial power works in the United States. One federal judge ordered the administration to obey the law. Three appellate judges—originally appointed by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden—stayed that order, not because of a political slogan, but because of whether this particular plaintiff had the legal right to bring the case.

Judicial independence does not mean that every higher court will issue the decision we want. It means the White House cannot simply call a judge and dictate the outcome. Sometimes an independent court stops an administration. Sometimes another independent court reverses or suspends that decision because it sees a procedural defect. That is painful for everyone who was waiting for registration to open, but it is what a system with a real separation of powers looks like.

And once again: the Ninth Circuit did not declare the State Department’s conduct lawful. It ruled that this law firm was the wrong plaintiff. That is a profound difference.

Where DV-2027 stands right now

The official Diversity Visa website is not accepting entries. There are no new instructions. The State Department’s old notice from November 2025 still promises that registration dates will be announced “as soon as practicable.” Nearly a year has passed.

The deadlines imposed by the district court are now stayed. The appeal continues, but an ordinary appellate schedule could easily carry the case far beyond any normal registration window. In theory, the situation could still change: the Ninth Circuit could expedite the appeal, Red Eagle could seek reconsideration, or a new plaintiff with a direct personal stake could file another lawsuit.

After the October 29 ruling, attorneys for Red Eagle Law told To USA that they intended to move quickly toward new litigation and were looking for a prospective DV-2027 entrant who could show the court direct rather than indirect harm. Such a plaintiff would indeed present a stronger case than a law firm. But a new lawsuit means a new case, a new timetable, and no guarantee of a result.

As of the evening of October 29, DV-2027 is not open, there is no binding timetable currently in effect for the State Department, and without new intervention the lottery will not take place. The program itself remains part of federal law. Legally, it is alive. In practice, the administration has once again deprived it of oxygen.

The administration continues pretending the law does not exist

The most outrageous part of this story is not the court. The court, at least, explains its reasoning. For nearly a year, the Trump administration has explained nothing.

To USA sent the State Department eight specific questions, a follow-up press inquiry, and a Freedom of Information Act request. We contacted the relevant congressional committees, the offices of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Representative Marilyn Strickland. We asked simple questions: Will DV-2027 take place? When will registration open? Who made the decision to delay it? On what legal basis is the department ignoring the mandatory 30-day registration period?

We received no substantive answer from either the State Department or our elected representatives. The FOIA process produced only procedural notices. The press office sent a boilerplate line about vetting and refused to discuss pending litigation. That was all.

The administration may talk about security, vetting, and presidential authority for as long as it likes. None of those words transforms the executive branch into the legislature. If Donald Trump wants to abolish the Diversity Visa program, the Constitution gives him a lawful path: persuade Congress to pass a bill and sign it. If the State Department wants to change its own regulations, there is a public rulemaking process. The administration chose a different route: do not repeal the rule, do not amend it, simply refuse to carry it out.

In my view, this is no longer a delay or a bureaucratic mistake. It is administrative lawlessness. The President’s constitutional duty is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, not to decide through silence which laws deserve to exist. When the government ignores not only the law, but also press inquiries, FOIA requests, and questions from members of the public, it demonstrates contempt for the very idea of accountability.

DV-2028: the clock is already running, and there is no information at all

While all attention remains fixed on DV-2027, the calendar has already reached the next lottery. In an ordinary year, registration for DV-2028 would take place in the fall of 2026. October is ending, yet the State Department has published no dates, no instructions, no dedicated page, and not even a promise to say more later.

Technically, the final legal deadline for DV-2028 has not yet been missed: the current fiscal year, during which a registration period must be established, runs through September 30, 2027. But after what happened to DV-2027, taking comfort in that extra time would be naïve. We have already watched the administration begin with talk of technical changes, remain silent for months, and then argue in court not about whether it must obey the law, but about who has the right to force it to do so.

There is currently no official information whatsoever about DV-2028. It is a separate program year, so the stay of the DV-2027 injunction does not automatically cancel it. But the same department is doing nothing under the same administration. There is no reason for complacency.

Congress really can abolish the lottery. It has not done so.

Congress now has more than one bill that would abolish the Diversity Visa program. That distinction matters: there is a legally proper way to end the program. The House and Senate must pass the same text, and the President must sign it.

The best-known stand-alone proposal is the SAFE for America Act, H.R. 1241. It was introduced in February 2025 and has 59 Republican cosponsors. Yet after twenty months it has not moved through committee: there have been no hearings, no committee-approved text, and no House vote. The original bill sets an effective date of October 1, 2025, which has long since passed; any serious effort to advance it would almost certainly require a technical correction.

On October 22, 2026, Republican Representative Keith Self introduced an even shorter bill, H.R. 10896. It simply strikes the Diversity Visa category from the law. The bill currently has no cosponsors and has seen no action since its referral to the House Judiciary Committee.

Repeal also appears inside larger immigration packages: H.R. 8827 and its Senate counterpart S. 4546, H.R. 8586 and S. 5485, as well as the SMARTER Act, H.R. 10400. Every one of them remains at the first stage: introduced and referred to committee. Not one has passed even a single chamber.

There is also a bill moving in the opposite direction. The Diversity Visa Protection and Modernization Act, H.R. 9457, would bar the government from indefinitely suspending diversity-visa issuance across the entire program, require notice to Congress, and compel publication of the reasons for any restrictions. A group of Democrats introduced it in June. It, too, is stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. In other words, Congress has taken neither of the two steps available to it: it has not abolished the lottery, and it has not created an effective safeguard against its administrative strangulation.

If a repeal bill actually becomes law

The consequences would depend on the text. Some proposals contain especially harsh transition rules. H.R. 8827 would explicitly strip prior selections of legal effect: a person selected before the law took effect could no longer receive a visa based on that selection afterward. The Senate’s S. 5485 would prohibit the issuance of diversity visas immediately upon enactment, even though the structural repeal of the category would begin with the next fiscal year.

That means even an open registration period or a selection notice would not necessarily save DV-2027 if Congress enacted one of these texts before visas were issued. For DV-2028, the result is simpler: once the category is finally repealed, there would be no legal program on which to base the next lottery.

Today, however, that remains a hypothetical scenario. Republicans control the House by a very narrow margin: 218 seats to the Democrats’ 214, with one independent and two vacancies. If the leadership brought a stand-alone repeal bill to the floor, it could theoretically pass the House. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, where ending debate on ordinary legislation generally requires 60 votes. No such bipartisan coalition for abolishing the Diversity Visa program is currently visible.

Trying to move a repeal through budget reconciliation would create another obstacle: eliminating an immigration category is primarily a policy change, not a budgetary one. It could theoretically be folded into a broad immigration compromise or a must-pass package, but there is no sign of such a deal today.

The current 119th Congress has a little more than two months remaining. At noon on January 3, 2027, it will end. Every bill that has not passed will die and must be introduced again in the next Congress. I therefore consider the chance of Diversity Visa repeal before that date low. Not zero—Congress sometimes passes major packages in its final weeks—but low. The political landscape will have to be reassessed after the election.

What we know for certain

Congress has not repealed DV-2027. The district court ordered the administration to conduct it. The appeals court stayed that order because it doubted that a law firm was the proper plaintiff. Registration will not open under the order as it stands, and without a new court ruling or voluntary action by the State Department, the lottery will not take place.

DV-2028 remains legally separate, but the State Department has said nothing about it. The repeal bills are real, yet not one has emerged from committee and not one is close to the President’s desk.

We will continue watching the appeal, any possible new lawsuit, the State Department’s official website, and the progress of the bills in Congress. If the situation changes, To USA will update its readers. Until then, do not pay intermediaries for “early registration” and do not enter personal information on unofficial websites. The genuine DV registration process is available only through the government portal, and it is currently closed.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.