US District Court Judge Amit Mehta has issued an order reserving a total of 7,395 diversity visas that were set to expire on Thursday, the last day of the US government’s 2021 fiscal year.
In the last-minute order issued on Thursday, judge Amit reserved 6,914 diversity visas for 22,203 plaintiffs in Goodluck v Biden and consolidated lawsuits.
He also reserved 481 diversity visas for DV-2021 plaintiffs in a lawsuit known as Goh, which is not consolidated with Goodluck vs Biden.
Earlier this week, US District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ordered the State Department to reserve 966 DV-2021 visas beyond Thursday’s midnight deadline.
If the Biden administration does not successfully appeal the orders by the two judges, 8,361 DV-2021 visas could be issued.
The Goodluck lottery winners and the consolidated lottery winners from Rosales v. Biden are represented by Curtis Lee Morrison, Jonathan Joshua Aftalion and Jana al-Akhras of the Law Office of Curtis Morrison, Abadir Jama Barre of Barre Law LLC, Kristina Ghazaryan of the Law Office of Kristina Ghazaryan, and Rafael N. Ureña.
The Filazapovich lottery winners are represented by Nicolette Glazer of the Law Offices of Larry R. Glazer.
The Goh lottery winners are represented by Aaron C. Hall and Jeffrey Dean Joseph of Joseph & Hall PC, and Charles H. Kuck of Kuck Immigration Partners LLC.
The government is represented by Cara Elizabeth Alsterberg, William Bateman III, Diana Viggiano Valdivia, William Herrick Weiland, Thomas Duffey, and Joseph F. Carilli Jr. of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The cases are Goodluck et al. v. Biden et al., Rosales et al. v. Biden et al., Filazapovich et al. v. Department of State et al. and Goh et al v. Department of State et al, case numbers 1:21-cv-01530, 1:21-cv-01874, 1:2021-cv-00943 and 1:21-cv-00999, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
