OK – I am going to be unavailable this whole weekend (three day weekend) so I am going to write up my thoughts and hopefully answer most questions. I will not be able to answer questions until Tuesday.

So what now for DV 2020 selectees.

OK – there are FIVE groups:

  1. People that had been issued visas but those visas expired.
  2. People on AP since having interviews earlier this year
  3. People who had interviews scheduled by KCC, but the interviews were cancelled
  4. People who got the ready for scheduling email.
  5. People that did not get the ready for scheduling email.

Group 1. You can get your visa re-issued, even if you are in the Schengen area. Contact your embassy and quote the judges order. You probably will need a new medical and will need to pay fees again. Don’t delay – you need to act fast. You should not need an interview so this should be easy for the embassy.

Group 2. If your case is now resolved (meaning whatever caused the AP delay is resolved) your case can now be approved. You will probably need a new medical to ensure the maximum visa validity. Contact the embassy asap and discuss the case with them. Do not waste time – now is the time to fight for your chance.

Group 3. Contact the embassy and see if they will schedule your case as an “emergency” or “mission critical” appointment. That is what Judge Mehta has ordered. You should make sure your medical is new.

Group 4. Having slept on this it strikes me there may be a chance for you. If you are in a country where the embassy is open and there are not that many winners there, I suggest you contact KCC and respectfully ask/demand that they forward your case to the embassy. This is outside of their normal procedure of scheduling, and they may not be able to do it – but if they will just send the case to the embassy, then it will be up to the embassy and yourself to get things arranged for the interview and the medical. It’s a chance. Quote the part of the order that I have quoted below. Judge Mehta has noted they behaved wrong and now need to do whatever they can to fix the problem in the last few weeks. Write to KCC and refer to the judges order – maybe some of you can make this happen.

Group 5. Other than cases where you are named, your chances of interview before the September 30th deadline is low. If there is an extension granted, it may only be covering the plaintiffs named on the various lawsuits. However, we will need to wait and see what Judge Mehta decides on the 25th.

In each case you should be prepared to refer to the lawsuit, and if needed provided a link to the order if an embassy does not know about it yet. The link is HERE

For those of you contacting the embassy or KCC, quote this part of the order that says they need to use “undertake good-faith efforts,” to “expeditiously process and adjudicate” your case by September 30th.

When contacting the embassies or KCC, you could use the following beginning of a letter with extracts from the court order.

Dear Sir/Madam,

As you should be aware on Friday September 4, Judge Mehta issued an order to the Department of State which directs the agencies such as DoS, KCC and the embassies to process and adjudicate DV2020 cases by the September 30th deadline. Judge Mehta has asked for a report of progress (including actions taken or not taken) for review on September 25th.

Additionally Judge Mehta found the following:

(1) the State Department’s policy of not reviewing and adjudicating non-exempt visas
is not in accordance with law, is in excess of statutory authority, and is arbitrary and capricious;
(2) the State Department’s non-processing of 2020 diversity visa applications constitutes agency
action unreasonably delayed; and (3) the State Department’s exclusion of 2020 diversity visa
applications from its guidance on mission critical services is arbitrary and capricious.

He then ordered:

“Defendants shall undertake good-faith efforts, directly and through their designees, to expeditiously process and adjudicate DV-2020 diversity visa and derivative beneficiary applications and issue or reissue diversity and derivative beneficiary visas to eligible applicants by September 30, 2020”

Given this judgement from the Federal court, which has jurisdiction in these matters, I am contacting you to request your immediate cooperation so that my case can be adjudicated by the deadline and according to the order of the judge.

Suggested format for an email – add your own particular details and request according to your scenario (group) ALSO Include the link to the order.

For people named on the various lawsuits, contact your lawyers for more information – but you must realize they will be very busy so be patient. Those people should find their cases are rushed through whatever stage they are at, but again – your lawyer can advise.

About entry to the USA. The judges order explains that people will be subject to a ban on entry until January – so you could have the visa issued in September but could not travel until January. That is why you need a new medical to ensure the longest possible validity. HOWEVER, DoS might implement that differently because normally a valid visa means entry is allowed – so we will see if they choose to annotate these visas in a special way to control the entry period.

About closed embassies. For groups 1 and 2 no interview is needed. But for group 3, interviews should be possible even if the embassy is not fully open. Push the embassy for a mission critical/emergency interview as ordered by Judge Mehta.

For DV2021 cases

This MAY mean we can see some interviews scheduled in November and December. However, that is not 100% certain so wait and see. Having said that – we still have 9 months after December – so relax. Obviously DV2020 cases are the bigger concern right now because they have so little time. So please – hold your questions.