A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration had unlawfully withheld visas from a number of people because of a travel ban President Trump instituted in June, which barred visa access for individuals from 19 countries.
The decision from Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Federal District Court in Washington applied narrowly to seven dozen people who had been selected for entry to the United States on “diversity visas.” Such visas offer a pathway to permanent residency, and 55,000 of them are granted every fiscal year to people from countries with low immigration rates to the United States.
She found that those individuals were then unlawfully refused the visa because of the travel ban Mr. Trump had instituted more than a year after they had won the lottery in May 2024. The ruling could have broader implications for the approximately 29,000 others from countries covered by the travel ban who won the diversity visa lottery in 2024, according to State Department data.
The individuals involved in the lawsuit hailed from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Togo, Somalia and Iran, and their visas were either denied outright or remained in processing. The lawsuit argued that the Trump administration had stalled, refusing to process visa requests before Sept. 30, when their eligibility to receive a visa through the program is set to expire.
Judge Sooknanan, who was appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., rejected the government’s argument that the State Department should be allowed to act on Mr. Trump’s order and ignore pending applications from countries that had been included on the list, given that existing laws allow people to get visas through the lottery program.
In her opinion, Judge Sooknanan cited a precedent set by the Supreme Court last year that prohibits federal agencies from relying on their own interpretations of the law to make policy, adding that the State Department had done so in this case.
She wrote that the administration had cited “longstanding practice” in seeking to deny visas to people barred by presidential action, but that doing so represented “turning away from the text of any statute.”
Judge Sooknanan noted severe limitations on the court’s authority that she said could result in the individuals ultimately being turned away from the country despite her order.
Out of the 84 individuals involved, she wrote that two had already seen their visas formally denied. She concluded that she was unable to direct the State Department to reverse those decisions.
Furthermore, she noted that even though she could require the Trump administration to process the visa applications before Sept. 30, the individuals affected by the president’s order could still be denied admission to the country at a port of entry for any number of other reasons, with little recourse.
In an accompanying order, Judge Sooknanan directed the State Department to “expeditiously process” and approve the remaining 82 applications. But she stressed in her opinion that the ban had upended the lives of those in what she described as the inauspicious position of winning the lottery amid Mr. Trump’s presidency — an opportunity that many people never have despite applying every year for decades.
“Defendants miss the gravity of what the plaintiffs stand to lose,” Judge Sooknanan wrote. “The plaintiffs literally won the lottery; they were randomly selected from millions of people around the world hoping for one of a handful of visas that could give them a chance to immigrate to the United States.”
“It may well be that, because of circumstances outside of their control, they will ultimately be unable to enter the United States even if they get a visa,” she added.