The key facts

  • On October 29, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals indefinitely suspended the decision to restart the DV Lottery
  • The court doubted the legal standing of the firm Red Eagle Law, which filed the lawsuit
  • The lottery was suspended in 2025 after the shooting at Brown University, where a student from Uzbekistan was killed

Court freezes the lottery restart

A US appellate court has suspended the decision to resume the DV Lottery immigration visa drawing, Newsweek reports, citing Spot.uz. Earlier, on October 14, a federal court for the Southern District of California ordered the State Department to begin accepting lottery applications no later than November 1. President Donald Trump's administration appealed that ruling.

Why the court doubted the plaintiff

On October 29, a panel of judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to stay the ruling indefinitely. The decision notes that the law firm Red Eagle Law, which filed the original lawsuit, lacked sufficient legal standing, and that its financial interests were not sufficiently connected to the program. In the panel's wording, the lottery «was launched to support immigration, not to provide income for law firms».

What happens to the lawsuit

Red Eagle Law founder and head Curtis Morrison said he intends to continue the litigation. According to Spot.uz, the firm is currently looking for foreigners living in the US on non-immigrant visas who are willing to act as plaintiffs against the White House. Thus, the question of the lottery's fate remains open: the lower court's ruling has not been overturned, but its enforcement is frozen for the duration of the proceedings.

Background: why the lottery was suspended

The «diversity visa» program has been in operation since 1990: the State Department annually draws 50,000 green cards among residents of various countries. Winners receive US permanent residency with the right to work, start a business and receive social benefits, and after five years they can apply for citizenship.

Connection to the events at Brown University

In 2025, the US suspended the lottery on Donald Trump's instruction: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem issued the relevant directive to the Citizenship and Immigration Service. This came shortly after the shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in which two people were killed, including a student from Uzbekistan, Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov. According to Noem, the suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, entered the US through the diversity visa program (DV-1) in 2017.