The Ninth Circuit just put the brakes on a federal judge’s order forcing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reopen the 2027 Diversity Visa lottery.
And the appeals court’s reasoning landed like a hammer.
A unanimous three-judge panel granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to freeze the lower-court order while the appeal moves forward.
That means the State Department does not have to open lottery registration by November 1 under the timetable imposed by U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta.
Curtis Morrison, the attorney behind the lawsuit, confirmed what the stay means for the program:
The dispute began after the State Department did not open the normal registration period for fiscal year 2027.
According to the Ninth Circuit’s October 29 order, that unexplained inaction effectively canceled the DV-2027 program.
Red Eagle Law, a California immigration firm that has represented lottery selectees, sued Rubio in August. The firm claimed that the administration’s failure to run the lottery was arbitrary, capricious and unlawfully withheld agency action.
The court’s account says the annual program offers as many as 55,000 visas to people from countries with low immigration rates. Before each fiscal year, roughly 100,000 lottery selectees are normally chosen from millions of entrants and invited to apply, although selection alone does not guarantee a visa.
For DV-2027, the department never opened that first registration window and gave no explanation in the record for leaving it closed.
But there was a major problem with the case.
Red Eagle was the sole plaintiff.
It did not bring the lawsuit on behalf of a prospective lottery entrant, and it did not claim to currently represent one.
Judge Ohta nevertheless issued a preliminary injunction on October 14 requiring the State Department to restart the program.
The district court’s written ruling concluded that the firm’s loss of potential clients and revenue gave it enough of an interest to challenge the government’s inaction.
The amended timetable required the department to announce registration dates by October 29, open registration by November 1 for 30 days, and notify selected entrants by December 3.
Ohta reasoned that the government had turned what was initially described as a delay into an indefinite suspension of a program Congress required the State Department to administer. Her preliminary injunction would have forced the department to begin the entire lottery process while the larger lawsuit continued.
The government argued that Red Eagle’s anticipated loss of future clients was not the kind of interest the Diversity Visa statute protects. That plaintiff-specific question became the key issue when the case reached the appeals court.
The Trump administration appealed and asked the Ninth Circuit for an emergency stay.
It got one.
The appellate panel said the government made a strong showing that it was likely to win because Red Eagle does not fall within the “zone of interests” protected by the Diversity Visa statute.
Congress created the program to encourage immigration from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
The court found that a law firm’s interest in making money by representing future lottery selectees was only marginally connected to that purpose.
Then came the line that cut straight through the case:
The Diversity Visa Program “was enacted to encourage immigration, not generate revenue for law firms,” the panel wrote.
A legal commentator highlighted the immediate result for President Trump and Secretary Rubio:
The ruling was narrow, but its practical effect is enormous.
The Diversity Visa Program can award up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to people from qualifying countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The State Department typically selects roughly 100,000 people at random to apply because not every selectee completes the process or qualifies for a visa.
Winning the lottery is not the same as receiving a green card. Selectees still must apply, submit documentation, complete screening and satisfy all legal requirements.
But without a registration period, there is no pool of DV-2027 entrants to draw from.
The Ninth Circuit did not decide the full appeal, abolish the program or permanently rule that the administration may cancel it.
The panel also made clear that it was not endorsing the State Department’s unexplained failure to open registration.
Instead, the court concluded that this particular plaintiff was unlikely to have a valid cause of action under the statute.
Judge N. Randy Smith went even further in a separate concurrence.
Smith argued that Red Eagle also lacks constitutional standing because its claimed injury depends on a chain of hypothetical events.
A foreign national would have to enter the lottery, be selected from millions of entrants, qualify to apply for a visa, choose to hire a lawyer, and then choose Red Eagle instead of another firm or proceeding without counsel.
That is far too speculative, Smith wrote, to establish a concrete injury caused by the government.
He warned that allowing lawyers to sue based on possible income from future, unidentified clients could open the courthouse doors to virtually limitless challenges against government action.
The reaction from the right was immediate:
BREAKING: The 9th Circuit just FROZE a FOREIGN-BORN JUDGE’s order that would have forced Marco Rubio to reopen the Diversity Visa lottery for up to 55,000 foreigners in 2027
GREAT! Keep it that way!
A foreign judge had ordered State Dept. to start registration by November 1 for the program, which hands out up to 55,000 green cards a year by RANDOM drawing
It was an immigration LAW FIRM who sued that makes money representing lottery winners, and the court said the program was “enacted to encourage immigration, not generate revenue for law firms”
Congress should step in ASAP and END this program!
Keep pushing, Marco
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 30, 2026
The Gateway Pundit, which first flagged the ruling for this report, noted that the stay lifts the immediate November 1 reopening deadline while the administration’s appeal proceeds.
Its report also traced the program’s recent political history, including President Trump’s longstanding demand that Congress end the lottery and the administration’s decision to pause it after authorities said the suspect in the Brown University and MIT killings had entered the country through the diversity-visa system years earlier.
The outlet emphasized the same sharp sentence now driving reaction to the ruling: Congress designed the program to encourage immigration from underrepresented countries, not to produce revenue for firms that might represent future selectees.
That distinction matters.
The Ninth Circuit did not say the legal fight is over. It said Red Eagle is unlikely to be the proper party to wage it.
Morrison has already signaled that new litigation could follow with a prospective applicant as the plaintiff.
For now, however, the lower court’s clock has stopped.
Rubio’s State Department is not being forced to restart the lottery this weekend, and an immigration law firm’s expectation of future fees was not enough to keep that order alive.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
The post BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Hands Trump Administration A Surprise Win On Immigration Green Card Lotteries appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.
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[H/T 100PercentFedUp]
