Background
The Immigration and Nationality Act requires the State Department to administer an annual program awarding up to 55,000 diversity visas to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. For fiscal year 2027, the Department did not open the lottery registration period or explain its failure to do so, effectively canceling the DV-2027 program.
Red Eagle Law, L.C., an immigration firm that represents diversity-visa selectees, sued under the Administrative Procedure Act and on an ultra vires theory. The firm was the sole plaintiff and neither joined nor claimed to represent any prospective DV-2027 applicant. The district court entered a preliminary injunction directing the Department to announce and open registration and later notify selectees. The government appealed and sought an emergency stay pending appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit granted the government’s emergency motion and stayed the preliminary injunction pending appeal. The court concluded that the government had made a strong showing of likely success because Red Eagle had not demonstrated that its interests were arguably within the zone of interests protected or regulated by the diversity-visa statute. That statute seeks to encourage immigration from countries with low immigration rates, while Red Eagle asserted an economic interest in obtaining fees from potential future clients.
The court distinguished precedent involving nonprofit legal-service organizations under the asylum statute, which expressly contemplates access to pro bono legal services, and a decision involving businesses benefited by the B-1 visa classification. The diversity-visa provisions contain no comparable reliance on legal-service providers and were not enacted to generate revenue for law firms. Although the panel did not endorse the Department’s failure to open registration, it held that Red Eagle likely lacked a cause of action.
Judge N. Randy Smith concurred separately, reasoning that Red Eagle also lacked Article III standing. In his view, the firm’s claimed loss of future fees depended on a speculative chain of events involving prospective applicants entering and winning the lottery, qualifying for visas, and choosing to retain Red Eagle rather than proceeding without counsel or hiring another firm. The per curiam order itself rested on the statutory zone-of-interests issue, not Article III standing.
Key Takeaways
- The Ninth Circuit stayed the district court’s preliminary injunction; it did not finally resolve the appeal from that injunction.
- A law firm’s interest in earning fees from future diversity-visa clients was not sufficiently related to the statutory purpose of encouraging immigration from low-admission countries.
- Judge Smith separately concluded that the firm’s asserted downstream economic injury was too speculative to establish Article III standing.
Why It Matters
The order prevents the district court’s mandated DV-2027 registration schedule from taking effect while the government’s appeal proceeds. It also signals that service providers seeking APA review cannot rely solely on anticipated business from people directly protected by a statute; their own interests must bear a sufficient relationship to the statute’s purposes.
The decision does not approve the State Department’s unexplained failure to administer the program. Instead, it turns on whether this particular plaintiff may pursue the challenge, leaving open whether a prospective diversity-visa applicant or another properly situated plaintiff could do so.