Green Card Lottery hangs in limbo as 2027 registration window shrinks

The State Department said last year it would announce a start date for the 2027 Green Card Lottery; nearly a year later, no date has come, and the usual early-October registration window is about to close. The Trump administration paused the program after shootings at Brown University and MIT last year, and critics including former Congressman Bruce Morrison call the pause a de facto cancellation without the legislative repeal the law would require.

Immigration attorney Curtis Morrison sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio to force the registration period open before the fiscal year ends September 30; U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta denied an emergency order but will weigh a preliminary injunction Thursday. In a related case, another judge already ordered the government to resume processing paused applications before year's end.

Would-be applicants from Poland, England and Algeria described feeling strung along, with one calling the pause unfair given the program's already strict eligibility rules. The Justice Department's own argument in court has been less about the law and more about the calendar: it may simply be too late in the year for a judge to fix anything.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.