Diversity visa lottery explained: Why thousands are still waiting for visas

The U.S. government gave tens of thousands of would-be immigrants one year to turn an extraordinary stroke of luck into a visa. Then, for most of that year, it stopped issuing the visas.

Families selected for the 2026 U.S. Diversity Immigrant Visa Program still organized their lives around the possibility that the process would resume. They sold homes, left jobs, gathered years of records and crossed borders for embassy interviews. Some spent thousands of dollars proving they qualified for visas the government would not issue.

In late August, two federal judges found the Trump administration’s pause unlawful and ordered the government to resume processing or reconsider affected cases. But by then, less than five weeks remained before the program’s Sept. 30 deadline, and nearly two more passed before the State Department instructed embassies to restart processing, according to court records.

The State Department says it is complying with the orders. But attorneys for the applicants accuse the administration of slow-walking thousands of cases until time runs out. A federal judge is now weighing whether the government should be held in contempt or ordered to take further action.

Here's what to know about how the diversity visa lottery works, why the…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/