Immigration attorneys have called on the Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia to hasten their ruling that could impact the lives of numerous FY-2020 and FY-2021 Diversity Visa Lottery winners. On Wednesday, legal representatives submitted a 28-page motion requesting the acceleration of the court’s decision. The Biden administration has challenged the lower court victories secured by the immigrants under Judges Amit Mehta and Tanya Chutkan.
The case involves around 20,000 hopefuls from the aforementioned fiscal years who were found by Judges Mehta and Chutkan to have been unjustly prevented from applying for visas at U.S. embassies. This was due to policies initially set by the Trump administration, which also allowed for the reservation of visas beyond the fiscal year’s end. The Biden administration has since filed an appeal against this finding.
The appellate panel, consisting of Judges Srinivasan, Henderson, and Katsas, is currently deliberating on the matter.
Attorney Curtis Lee Morrison, who represents thousands of the affected plaintiffs, emphasized the urgency of the situation for his clients, stating, “We have the utmost respect for the judges assigned to this appeal and their discretion over how to manage their own docket. However, many of our clients live in places like Afghanistan, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and Yemen, where the world is falling apart. Others are LGBTQ trying to escape Iran or Ghana. It is difficult to tell them – 4 or 5 years after they learned they won the lottery – to stay hopeful when their journeys are still in limbo.”
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