Kenyans hoping to try their luck in the 2027 US green card lottery will have to keep waiting after a federal appeals court on Thursday suspended an order that would have forced the US State Department to open registration for the programme on Sunday, 1 November.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted the Trump administration's emergency request to pause a lower-court injunction while the government's appeal is heard. The decision, reported on Friday by Kenyans.co.ke and Pulse Kenya and confirmed by US outlets including Bloomberg Law and Newsweek, means the entry window for the Diversity Visa (DV-2027) programme will not open as many applicants had hoped, and no new dates have been announced.

What the court decided

The case, Red Eagle Law v. Rubio, was filed in August by Red Eagle Law, a California immigration firm that represents Diversity Visa selectees. It accused the State Department, headed by Secretary Marco Rubio, of unlawfully failing to open the 2027 registration period.

On 14 October, US District Judge Jinsook Ohta of the Southern District of California sided with the firm and issued a preliminary injunction. According to Bloomberg Law, the order required the department to announce registration dates by 29 October and start taking entries by 1 November.

The Ninth Circuit panel, made up of Judges M. Margaret McKeown, N. Randy Smith and Holly A. Thomas, stayed that order. In its unsigned opinion the court said the law firm "has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits" because it does not fall within the "zone of interests" the diversity visa law is meant to protect. The judges noted that the programme exists to encourage immigration from countries that send few people to the US, not to earn fees for law firms.

The panel was careful not to back the government's position outright. "We do not endorse the Department's failure to open the lottery registration period," the judges wrote, according to Newsweek, which also reported that the court described the unexplained delay as "effectively canceling" the programme. In a separate concurring opinion, Judge Smith said he believed the firm also lacked standing under Article III of the US Constitution to bring the case at all.

Why the lottery stalled

The Diversity Visa programme, popularly known as the green card lottery, offers up to 55,000 permanent residence visas a year to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the US. Winners are picked at random from millions of online entries, and those selected must still pass interviews, background checks and education or work-experience requirements before a visa is issued.

The programme has been in turmoil since December 2025, when the Trump administration suspended it after a Portuguese national who had entered the US through the lottery was suspected in deadly shootings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including at Brown University. The suspect was later found dead.

Separate litigation over the pause on processing earlier winners continued through the year. In August, a federal judge in California ordered US immigration authorities to resume handling some pending applications, but the State Department then announced a fresh review of screening and vetting that kept new diversity visa issuances on hold.

What it means for Kenyans

Kenya is consistently among the biggest participants in the lottery in Africa. State Department figures for the DV-2026 draw, as reported by regional outlets, put Kenya's selectees at 3,949, the fourth-highest number on the continent, a tally that includes spouses and children.

For Kenyans who had been preparing passport photos and documents for an expected November opening, the ruling means:

  • There is currently no open DV-2027 registration, and any website or agent claiming to accept entries is not an official channel. The only genuine entry portal is run by the State Department and is free.
  • No new registration dates have been set, and the government is under no court order to set them while the stay is in force.
  • Even if the lottery eventually reopens, being selected does not guarantee a visa.

What happens next

The stay will remain in place until the Ninth Circuit rules on the government's full appeal against Judge Ohta's injunction, and the court clerk is expected to issue a briefing schedule. Red Eagle Law's lead attorney, Curtis Morrison, has said the firm intends to keep challenging the State Department's handling of DV-2027, according to US media reports.

Unless the courts or the administration change course, thousands of hopeful Kenyans face the prospect of a year without a green card lottery, and an uncertain future for a programme that for decades has been one of the few legal routes to the US open to ordinary applicants.

Photos: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain); US Department of State via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.