A court case over the visa pause affecting 75 countries revealed that the final call on issuing, revoking, or denying a visa is made not by a consular officer, but by a piece of software the officer merely feeds applicant data into.

In short

  • The visa pause hit applicants from 75 countries, including DV lottery winners whose cases stopped moving.
  • After the pause was formally lifted following the lawsuits, the State Department introduced a new one almost immediately — citing officer training.
  • The final visa decision is made not by a consular officer but by software, into which the officer only feeds the collected information.
  • Only cases of plaintiffs in the Madonna, Manov, and Story v. Trump lawsuits are being processed — everyone else remains stuck.
  • The principle that a consular officer’s decision can’t be judicially reviewed is now in question, since the decision is made by an algorithm, not a person.

What we know about the visa pause in 75 countries

The pause affects applicants from 75 countries and has been in the news for months as one of the most contested immigration measures. The State Department has been running a policy under which cases from applicants in these 75 countries aren’t being processed, including cases of Green Card lottery (DV lottery) winners.

Some applicants won the DV lottery and formally met every program requirement, yet still can’t enter the US because of this pause: their cases simply aren’t moving forward. At the same time, a new public charge screening — an assessment of whether an applicant might become a burden on the public benefits system — is affecting how part of these applications get processed.

The pause draws wide attention because of its scale: it hit applicants from 75 countries at once, not isolated cases, including people who had already cleared the lottery selection and were waiting on the final step. For many families this means separation from relatives who physically cannot enter the country despite having completed the process.

The core of the pause

The State Department isn’t processing cases of applicants from 75 countries, including DV lottery winners who formally met every program requirement.

Lawsuits against the visa pause

Several federal lawsuits were filed against the pause: Madonna v. Trump, Manov v. Trump, and Story v. Trump. Some are group plaintiff suits, others are class actions, where the court’s ruling applies to the entire class of affected applicants, not just those who personally signed on.

As a result of these suits, the pause was formally lifted, and every stuck case was supposed to move into processing. But as soon as the lift was made official, the State Department introduced a new pause — this time citing the need to further train officers. In practice, nothing changed for applicants: the situation stayed the same as it was months earlier, with rare exceptions.

The lawyers handling this litigation asked the court to force the government to comply with the rulings already issued. In response, officials were required to file status reports with the court — how many visas are actually being issued and how many applicants are being called back for interviews. According to the latest report, the number of stuck DV lottery cases is in the tens of thousands. Of those, only a few hundred were called back for a new interview, and visas were actually issued in only a handful.

A lift isn’t a fix

Right after the pause was formally lifted, the State Department introduced a new one — citing officer training. For applicants, nothing changed.

Who actually issues the visa: the officer or the software

During the litigation, a government attorney submitted, under oath, a document describing the visa issuance procedure itself. According to that document, once an applicant is called back for a second interview and completes it, the consular officer passes all the collected information — not a final decision — into a piece of software.

It’s that software, not the officer, that renders the final verdict: issue the visa, revoke one already issued, or deny it. Who is behind the software isn’t clear from the document. The document’s author assumes a real person is behind the decision and suggests it’s most likely someone in Washington — but there’s no confirmation of that.

It’s that software, not the officer, that renders the final verdict: issue the visa, revoke one already issued, or deny it.

Some applicants who already went through a second interview ended up in limbo for a different reason. According to the same records, some people requested a second interview themselves and were told they weren’t on the list of those slated to be called back. In other words, the decision on who even gets a re-interview is made in advance and separately from the applicant’s own request.

Some people requested a second interview themselves and were told they weren’t on the list of those slated to be called back.

Diagram of an applicant's path: from the consular officer interview to data being fed into the decision software

Whose cases are still moving, and can the decision be challenged

Consulates continue to refuse processing for everyone except the named plaintiffs in the Madonna v. Trump, Manov v. Trump, and Story v. Trump lawsuits — the latter representing DV lottery Green Card winners. That’s according to a report the government filed with the court for a second time, in which it acknowledged its own noncompliance with the court order.

By the government’s own admission, plaintiffs and class members — DV lottery winners chief among them — risk losing their chance to enter the US if their cases aren’t processed in time. At the time of the report, only eight days remained until year’s end, weekends included, and no measures capable of fixing the situation by that deadline had been taken.

At the time of the report, only eight days remained until year’s end, weekends included, and no measures capable of fixing the situation by that deadline had been taken.

A separate issue is the very ability to challenge the decision. For decades, US practice followed a principle that a consular officer’s visa decision isn’t subject to judicial review: if an officer denies a visa, you can’t sue over that decision. But that principle rested on the assumption that the decision is made by the officer. Now that the case has shown the final word rests with the software, not a person, the very foundation of that rule is in question — who, and on what basis, should bear responsibility for a decision formally made by an algorithm.

Cases outside the plaintiff list aren’t moving

Only the cases of plaintiffs in the three lawsuits are being processed. Consulates keep refusing to process everyone else.

The ability to challenge a denial is itself in question

The rule against judicial review of a consular officer’s decision rested on the assumption a human made the call. If software does, the rule’s foundation is shaky.

Frequently asked questions

What should a DV lottery applicant do if they’re not among the plaintiffs in the Madonna, Manov, or Story v. Trump lawsuits?

According to the government’s report, consulates are currently only processing the cases of named plaintiffs in these three lawsuits. Applicants who aren’t plaintiffs remain in limbo — their cases don’t move until the government expands the pool of cases being processed or a court orders it to.

How many DV lottery visas are actually stuck because of the pause?

According to the government’s latest report, the number of stuck DV lottery cases is estimated at around 50,000. Of those, only a few hundred were called back for a second interview, and visas were actually issued in only a handful of cases.

Who can file an affidavit of support for a DV lottery winner?

An affidavit of support is an agreement between a sponsor and the US government to financially support an immigrant. It can be signed by a US citizen or green card holder, and the sponsor must file tax returns and specify exactly what support they’ll provide.