The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals suspended a court order on Thursday that required the Donald Trump administration to reopen the Diversity Visa Lottery for 2027 (DV-2027), leaving the start date for registrations unconfirmed.
The ruling, issued on October 29, grants the Department of State, led by Marco Rubio, an emergency suspension while the appeal filed by the federal government is processed.
The decision halts the deadlines set by a California judge, who had ordered the announcement of the enrollment period this Thursday, to open registration on Sunday, November 1, and to notify the selected candidates before December 3.
With those deadlines suspended, the program continues to not accept new applications and there is no official date for its reopening.
The litigation arose from the failure to open the registration for the DV-2027 Visa Lottery, the dates of which had been pending since November 2025, when the Department of State announced modifications to the enrollment process. In December of that year, Kristi Noem, then Secretary of Homeland Security, announced that she had ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to suspend the processing of cases related to the DV1 program.
On August 31, 2026, the State Department announced a new suspension of the issuance of diversity visas, after a court order lifted the pause that had been in effect since December 2025. This measure, related to the issuance of visas, is distinct from the postponement of registrations for DV-2027, the opening date of which had yet to be announced and led to the legal dispute.
Why did the court suspend the reopening order?
The litigation began in August 2026, when the immigration firm Red Eagle Law sued the Department of State for keeping the program's registry closed.
On October 14, Federal Judge Jinsook Ohta ordered to reactivate the lottery, but the government appealed.
Now, the Ninth Circuit found that Red Eagle Law has little chance of succeeding in its lawsuit because its economic interests are not protected by the legislation governing the Visa Lottery. The judges pointed out that the program aims to facilitate immigration from certain countries, not to generate income for law firms.
However, the court clarified that its ruling does not constitute support for the government's decision to keep the registry closed.
"We do not endorse that the [State] Department has not opened the lottery registration period," the judges stated.
The resolution also does not definitively determine whether the Trump administration acted legally in halting the program.
What does this decision mean for Cubans?
The Visa Lottery allows for the issuance of up to 55,000 immigrant visas annually to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
However, those born in Cuba have been excluded from the DV-2026 program because the country exceeded the limit of 50,000 immigrants during the five-year period used to determine eligibility.
For DV-2027, the Department of State has not yet published definitive instructions confirming which countries will be able to participate, so one should not assume Cuba's exclusion from this new lottery is established.
The official Visa Lottery portal remains the only authorized site for submitting applications when registration opens.
For the moment, the Ninth Circuit's decision keeps the reopening order on hold while the legal appeal is ongoing. The future of the DV-2027 program remains without a definitive resolution.
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