53,939 Africans from Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana and 10 other countries win US Green Card lottery court relief ahead of September 30 deadline

On August 28, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in California temporarily stopped several restrictions affecting Diversity Visa applicants, including a December 2025 hold on some Green Card applications and an earlier State Department suspension of Diversity Visa issuance.

The State Department confirmed that the December suspension was no longer in force following the ruling, reopening a legal path for affected applicants to continue with their cases.

Applicants can continue submitting documents and attending scheduled interviews as the DV-2026 programme moves towards its September 30 deadline.

The ruling is particularly significant for Africa, which accounts for a large share of DV-2026 applicants.

According to State Department data, 53,939 prospective applicants were registered across Africa under DV-2026, with 41,696 coming from the 13 countries highlighted in this report. The figures include people selected in the lottery as well as their spouses and children.

Egypt recorded 5,527 prospective applicants, followed by Algeria with 5,457, Sudan with 5,226, Kenya with 3,949, Morocco with 3,670, Cameroon with 3,533 and Ethiopia with 3,287.

Togo recorded 2,473 prospective applicants, the Democratic Republic of Congo 2,210, Ghana 1,642, Burundi 1,616, Liberia 1,593 and Uganda 1,513.

Nigeria does not appear in the figures because it is not eligible for DV-2026. The programme generally excludes countries that sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the previous five years.

Other ineligible countries include India, China, Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica and Vietnam.

Globally, about 129,516 prospective applicants were registered for DV-2026 from more than 20.8 million qualified entries, according to the State Department.

The Diversity Visa programme normally offers up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to people from countries with relatively low levels of migration to the United States.

Despite the court victory, applicants now face a new hurdle.

On August 31, the State Department imposed a fresh pause on all Diversity Visa issuance while it reviews the programme’s screening and vetting procedures.

According to the department’s latest guidance, applicants can continue submitting applications and attending interviews, but no Diversity Visas will be issued during the pause and there are no exceptions.

The department said the suspension followed security concerns linked to the Brown University shooting and the killing of an MIT professor. It said the suspect was believed to have entered the United States through the Diversity Visa programme.

The timing puts African applicants under pressure because DV-2026 visas can only be issued before the end of the U.S. fiscal year on September 30, 2026.

According to the State Department, applicants who fail to receive their visas or adjust their immigration status by September 30 will no longer benefit from their DV-2026 selection. Visa numbers could also run out before the deadline.

The August 28 decision came a week after another federal court struck down a separate policy that had suspended immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries.

Reuters reported that U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas overturned the restriction on August 21 after finding that the State Department had exceeded its authority.

The State Department confirmed that the affected countries included several African states, among them Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

That case dealt with immigrant visas more broadly and was separate from the Diversity Visa suspension.

For African DV-2026 applicants, the court rulings have removed key legal barriers, although the latest State Department freeze means they are still waiting to see whether visa issuance will resume before the September 30 deadline.