Judge orders reinstatement of 2027 U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery by Sunday

California-based federal judge Jinsook Ohta (Biden appointee) has ruled that the U.S. State Department must reinstate its Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery for fiscal year 2027 by Sunday.

The program offers permanent residency in the U.S. to 50,000+ applicants every year, typically from countries with lower immigration to the U.S. Many come from Africa.

The Trump admin suspended the program last year after a Portuguese national who came to the U.S. via the diversity lottery was suspected of a deadly shooting at Brown University & the murder of a MIT professor before taking his own life.