U.S. Court Orders DV-2027 Green Card Lottery to Be Reinstated

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California ordered the U.S. Department of State to conduct the DV-2027 Green Card lottery, which had not been launched on schedule.

The decision was issued on October 14 by Judge Jinsook Ohta in a lawsuit filed by the Red Eagle Law firm against U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Initially, the court required applications to open on October 18 for a 30-day period, with the relevant dates to be announced on October 15. However, the judge approved a joint request by the parties to postpone the deadline by two weeks.

Applications for DV-2027 were originally expected to open in the fall of 2025, but the program was not launched due to uncertainty. In November of that year, the Department of State announced that the participation rules would be changed and said that new dates would be announced later.

As a result, in August 2026, Red Eagle Law filed a lawsuit seeking to require the lottery to be held.

The Diversity Visa (DV) Program allocates around 55,000 visas each year to nationals of countries with relatively low levels of immigration to the United States.

Detailed participation requirements for DV-2027 will be published on the official resources of the U.S. Department of State.