A U.S. judge has set aside roughly 7,000 visas allowing people who won a lottery aimed at increasing the country’s diversity to try to go to the United States.
In this Sept. 23, 2021, photo provided by Marcos Antonio Portal Quintero, shows Cuban economics student Dorisnelly Fuentes Matos, 27, second from left, with a group of Cuban citizens outside the U.S. embassy in Georgetown, Guyana. Dorisnelly Fuentes Matos may have won the U.S. visa lottery on paper, but she still isn't close to reaching the United States. Marcos Antonio Portal Quintero via AP)
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington issued the order after the State Department gave out only 27% of up to 55,000 diversity visas allotted for the fiscal year that ended in September. The agency has said the delays stemmed from“Some of that shortfall is no doubt due to the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic is not the primary culprit,” Mehta wrote in a ruling late Thursday.
After the pandemic hit, the Trump administration put a freeze on many green cards issued outside of the United States, including the diversity visas. The Biden administration lifted the freeze on green cards, but the State Department still wasn't issuing most of the visas. Applicants sued both last year and this year to get some visas saved.
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