On June 25, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the district courts’ decisions that had ordered the Department of State (DOS) to reserve and adjudicate diversity visa (DV) cases from the DV-2020 and DV-2021 program years. The court found that:

The district courts had no authority to order the State Department to keep processing applications for diversity visas and issuing the visas beyond the end of the relevant fiscal years. … [C]ourts cannot order relief that conflicts with a clear and constitutionally valid statute. … Once Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021 ended, the plaintiffs lost their eligibility for diversity visas. The district courts erred in asserting an equitable authority to override these clear statutory deadlines, which foreclose the prospective relief sought in these cases. Accordingly, we … remand the cases with instructions to enter judgment for the government.

Accordingly, DOS said it will not process DV cases associated with these district court decisions from the DV-2020 or DV-2021 program years. Affected individuals from eligible countries “who wish to submit a new DV entry may do so during the registration period for the DV-2026 program year, which will open in October 2024 and close in early November 2024,” DOS said.

DOS said it “will continue to preserve case records related to the DV-2020 and DV-2021 programs until the litigation has concluded.”

Details: