A Biden-appointed federal judge has ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department to open registration for the 2027 diversity visa lottery and run it on a court-imposed schedule. U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta granted the preliminary injunction on Wednesday after a Southern California immigration firm sued over the department’s failure to start the process.
Breitbart News reported that the order directs the department to announce the registration period this week, open a 30-day electronic entry window by Oct. 18, and notify selected applicants by Nov. 19. After selection, the department must process and award the visas until the 2027 allotment runs out or the fiscal year ends next September.
The ruling puts a federal court back in the middle of the green card lottery, a program Congress created in 1990 that can issue up to 50,000 immigrant visas a year to people from countries that send few immigrants to the United States. The fight turns on whether a judge can compel the executive branch to restart an administrative visa process the government says it no longer has lawful room to run.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paused the lottery after authorities found that the Brown University shooter had entered the country through the diversity visa program in 2017. The State Department later resumed issuing diversity visas in August under a separate court order. A second federal judge in Northern California also found that the department delayed processing in a related case.
Red Eagle Law, a Southern California immigration firm, filed suit in July against Rubio over the department’s failure to open 2027 registration. The firm argued the inaction was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law,” called the failure a “de facto cancellation,” and said it had lost clients because much of its practice involves lottery applicants.
Weeks earlier, Judge Ohta denied an emergency bid from the same firm to force the program open. She questioned whether she had the power to do it at all. From the bench at that hearing, she told the parties she was being asked to restart a government program.
"You’re asking me to demand that the government restart this program,"
On Wednesday she granted the broader preliminary injunction and set the registration and notification deadlines described above. Ohta is a Biden appointee who immigrated from South Korea at age six.
Government lawyers countered that the firm had waited too long and that the statutory deadline to run the program had already passed. They told the court that left no lawful way to order the lottery reopened. The injunction still issued, placing Rubio and the State Department on a fixed clock for announcements, electronic entries, selectee notices, and visa processing through the fiscal year ending next September.
The procedural stakes are concrete. A preliminary injunction is an early court order that can force immediate action while a case continues. It is not a final judgment on every claim in the suit. Investigators and the parties will still have to litigate the underlying legality of the pause, the timing of the firm’s challenge, and the scope of judicial power over visa administration.
Under the order as described, the department must announce the registration period this week. It must open a 30-day window for electronic entries by Oct. 18. It must notify selected applicants by Nov. 19. Visa processing and awards then continue until the 2027 allotment is exhausted or the fiscal year ends next September.
Authorities have not publicly released the full verbatim text of the injunction beyond those timeline points in the available account. The public record described in reporting also does not detail the statutes the court relied on beyond the operative schedule, the full case caption, or the courthouse city for Ohta’s order.
The Wednesday order sits alongside other judicial pressure. The department had already resumed issuing diversity visas in August under a separate court order, and a Northern California federal judge found delayed processing in a related matter. Together, the rulings show multiple courts examining how the executive branch handled the lottery after the December pause tied to the 2017 entry of the Brown University shooter.
Josh Gerstein posted on X about Ohta’s order. The post drew dismissive replies. Some replies questioned whether a judge can direct the executive branch to run an administrative program. Others focused on the judge’s name. The post text itself was not quoted in the seed reporting.
Red Eagle Law framed the department’s failure to open 2027 registration as unlawful inaction that wiped out a core part of its practice. The government framed the same facts as a late-filed demand after a statutory deadline had closed. Ohta first resisted an emergency force-open request, then granted a preliminary injunction with a detailed registration calendar.
What remains for the litigation is the merits fight over whether the pause and the missed registration window were lawful, whether the firm’s delay bars relief, and how far a district court may go in rewriting the executive’s visa calendar. No public results have been released on final liability, damages, or a permanent injunction. The immediate effect is operational: the State Department has been told to announce, open entries, notify selectees, and process awards on the court’s dates.
Congress built the diversity visa lottery in 1990 as a permanent statutory pathway for up to 50,000 visas a year. The current clash is not about repealing that statute in the Capitol. It is about a single district judge ordering the Secretary of State to run the next cycle after a security-driven pause and a contested reading of deadlines.
When courts start writing the visa calendar for the executive branch, voters lose the clear line between lawmaking, enforcement, and adjudication that keeps immigration policy accountable.
