Thousands of DV winners from around the globe have launched a lawsuit against the Biden administration over fears that they will lose the chance to move to America after being told their visa applications will not be prioritized due to the corona virus pandemic.
Lawyer Curtis Morrison tweeted that the lawsuit was filed in a court in Washington DC on behalf of the 24,089 DV winners based in 141 different countries of fiscal year 2021.
The case has been filed urging to give priority to "diversity visas" as there is a provision to get the visa only by the end of September i.e fiscal year and there is less than 4 months left. Generally, there is a provision for DV winners to start getting visas from October 1, each year. However, those who do not get visas by the end of September or within the fiscal year will not be able to get visas thereafter.
The Nepali diversity visa winners for the fiscal year 2021 are also worried and confused as the visa application period is getting longer and the US Embassy in Kathmandu has not issued visas to the DV winners. In the fiscal year 2021, 3801 Nepalis won the DV lottery and so far no one has been able to get a visa.
Last year, US President Donald Trump banned immigration and even visa bans on DV winners due to the Corona epidemic. However, after court ordered the government to issue visas to the DV winners, the DV winners were able to obtain visas in September last year. Although they received visas, they were not allowed to travel to the United States until the end of February due to immigration restrictions.
For the fiscal year 2020, 3696 Nepalis had won the DV lottery. But only about 1,350 primary DV winners managed to get a US visa. In total 2,085 Nepalese, including primary DV applicants and their family members, were able to obtain diversity visas. DV winners in FY 2021 is even worse than for DV winners in 2020. Although there is no direct immigration ban, lottery winners have not been able to obtain visas since the State Department's current guidance, diversity visas have been made a "tier four" priority, with the State Department acknowledging that "many embassies and consulates" are already struggling with a "significant backlog of all categories of immigrant visas". If the current situation continues, the 2021 DV winners will not get as many visas as the 2020 winners.
The new lawsuit filed on June 6th 2021 argues that the US should be prioritizing diversity visa winners as much as any other visa applicant.
The US Embassy in Kathmandu has canceled visa appointments since April 29 due to the ongoing lockdown following the outbreak of corona in Nepal. Although the winner of the Fiscal Year 2021 has not been decided yet, the US Embassy in Kathmandu has suggested the winner of DV 2022 to fill the DS 260 form as soon as possible.
Despite making passports mandatory, 688,502 Nepalese participated in the 2021 DV lottery program. There were 421,765 Nepalese applying for the primary.
The source of information was taken from Khasokhas and Euronews
