Several lawsuits were filed recently by individuals and organizations affected by the Trump administration’s bans on the entry of certain immigrants and nonimmigrants into the United States.
- On July 17, 2020, 23 individual and organizational plaintiffs, including family-based immigrant visa petitioners, diversity visa lottery winners, and nonimmigrant visa sponsors, sued to overturn President Trump’s bans. Litigators from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Justice Action Center, and Innovation Law Lab, with pro bono support from Mayer Brown LLP, filed the plaintiffs’ claims as an amended complaint, which had initially challenged President Trump’s April immigration ban. The amended complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “marks the first legal challenge to the entirety of President Trump’s immigration ban, which has been extended through the end of 2020,” the plaintiffs said in a statement.
- On July 16, 2020, 149 diversity visa (DV) lottery selectees from 14 countries sued the Trump administration and the Department of State seeking immediate relief from a June 22, 2020, Presidential Proclamation that effectively bars them from entering the United States. Some have immigrant visa stamps, were interviewed before being issued visa stamps, or were waiting for their final interviews. They argue that President Trump acted illegally when he ended the 2020 DV lottery program, and that he does not have the authority to interrupt the statutory scheme of immigration created by Congress.
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