I am seeing questions from people about a couple of new legal options DV2020 lawsuits and so on, and I feel like I need to be a bit more clear with my readers about these lawsuits. I had previously posted about current status for DV2020 selectees (see that post here) and in that video I had addressed a lawsuit being proposed by an attorney by the name of Nicolette Glazer. I had said that I do NOT recommend anyone enlist on that lawsuit or any further cases because there is no need (since all cases are covered under the Gomez class) and no chance of success (because the suit would be filed after the end of the September 30, 2020 deadline).

Jesse Bless had created a statement explaining the same exact point (that no one should participate in new lawsuits), and I have seen posts/comments from Charles Kuck and Curtis Morrison agreeing with Jesse Bless. So it should be clear that there is no need to enroll in a further lawsuit such as the one suggested by Nicolette Glazer. Of course, you are free to decide for yourself and participate in that lawsuit if you wish. Your money, your choice.

Now, I have also become aware that Curtis Morrison has started a new project again designed to help DV2020 cases. Firstly, it’s not a lawsuit. He is quite clear about that – and that is why it is called a “project” – you can read about it here – Project Voyager.

He is trying to do two things.

1. Raise money to finance lobbying efforts to persuade congress to write some law to get remaining unused visas for DV2020 made available again. This is legislation (changing the law) as opposed to litigation (lawsuits).

2. Provide Legal assistance “by actual attorneys” to help DV2020 cases progress their cases through Consular Processing if the 9095 visas are issued or the lobbying were to be successful. 

So – I feel I need to state my own opinion in a clear way, because otherwise I will get lots of questions on this topic. So here is my personal opinion (and Curtis will, I’m sure, disagree or correct me where he sees fit).

1. I would be happy to see more lobbying for DV2020 cases, but it is extremely unlikely to achieve the desired result. Lobbying is persuasion, and exercising political influence with lawmakers to build sympathy for a certain position. It cannot be guaranteed to work, and indeed Curtis and Rafael have already spent money on lobbying without result. To be perfectly honest, I think congress will have too much on its plate trying to rebuild the mess that Trump is leaving to spend time to craft law that would retroactively help DV2020 cases. I believe the existing legal options being worked are, in my personal opinion, as much as we can expect and the best remaining chance. 

2. Legal assistance “by actual attorneys” is not usually required for the vast majority of DV cases. The questions needed to be asked are answered more accurately and more effectively “by actual DV experts” – and respectfully none of the fine lawyers who have been helping DV are conversant enough with procedures to be helpful with normal cases. They know law, but they don’t know DV, certainly not anywhere near as well as people such as Sm1smom, SusieQQQ or of course myself, and probably a few others around here and other forums. So unless there is a need/benefit to sue someone (which is not what CM is offering as I understand it), DV cases do not need a lawyer to answer the questions that come up. 

3. In his project description and video Curtis is again misunderstanding and over estimating the potential numbers of people affected. I have tried to explain this to him, but he seems to have misunderstood what I explained, or thinks he knows better. He is clearly incorrect. He says there are 60,000 selectees (and he infers an additional number for spouses and children of those selectees) who will miss out on DV2020 and this creates an impression of many thousands of people still being impacted. That is incorrect. He is basing his numbers that on the approximately 20k visas already issued leaving approximately 60k from the original 83k selectees. I have explained to him that a large percentage of those 83k would never have proceeded in any case (for example, normal non responses), and any of you that have paid any attention at all should understand that the 83k includes spouses and children. Had DV2020 had a normal year of processing (with full speed from KCC and the embassies and without COVID) the 83k selectees would have yielded about 45,000 issuances at most. We have had almost 20k of those, so there can only be around 25k left and that number INCLUDES spouses and children. So – if the Gomez case is finally successful and we get the 9095, that would mean about 15,000 people will be left without visas.

To be clear, if the Gomez suit fails, then the chance of lobbying working is further reduced, so the additional impact of lobbying would be for those 15,000 visas. But the chance of success of lobbying is extremely low.

So – if you feel you want to donate $500 to help fund the lobbying, then do please go ahead, but please only do that if you are financially able to do that knowing there is very little chance of success.