_________________________________________ ) SIARHEI FILAZAPOVICH et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 21-cv-00943 (APM) ) DEPARTMENT OF STATE et al., ) ) Defendants. ) _________________________________________ ) _________________________________________ ) BRANDON KIN SHAUN GOH et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 21-cv-00999 (APM) ) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE et al., ) ) Defendants. ) _________________________________________ ) _________________________________________ ) MAXWELL GOODLUCK et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 21-cv-01530 (APM) ) JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR. et al., ) ) Defendants. ) _________________________________________ ) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER I. INTRODUCTION Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State Department has dramatically reduced its processing of diversity visa applications. In April 2020, President Donald Trump issued Presidential Proclamation 10014, which prohibited diversity visa selectees from entering the United States unless they could establish that their entry was in the national interest. The State Department, in turn, refused to consider diversity visa selectees as candidates for a national-interest exception and interpreted Proclamation 10014’s ban on diversity visa holders entering the country to mean that diversity visa applicants were ineligible for visas. This effectively halted the diversity visa program for Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2020. In the summer of 2020, thousands of FY 2020 diversity visa applicants brought suit in this court across multiple cases, seeking preliminary relief requiring the State Department to process diversity visa applications and requesting that the court reserve additional diversity visa numbers that could be issued to applicants after FY 2020 closed on September 30, 2020. See Gomez v. Trump (Gomez I), 485 F. Supp. 3d 145 (D.D.C. 2020); Gomez v. Trump (Gomez II), 490 F. Supp. 3d 276 (D.D.C. 2020); Gomez v. Trump (Gomez III), No. 20-cv-1419 (APM), 2021 WL 3663535 (D.D.C. Aug. 17, 2021). The court found, among other things, that while Proclamation 10014 was likely lawful, the State Department’s stance that Proclamation 10014’s bar on entry automatically foreclosed the issuance of FY 2020 diversity visas was likely contrary to law. See Gomez I, 485 F. Supp. 3d at 190–94. The court also certified a class consisting of FY 2020 diversity visa selectees. See Gomez II, 490 F. Supp. 3d at 291–94. In early September 2020, the court granted preliminary injunctive relief for the class, requiring the State Department to adjudicate the plaintiffs’ diversity visa applications and reserve 9,095 diversity visa numbers for processing pending the matter’s final disposition. Id. at 294–95. Despite the court’s preliminary ruling, the State Department did not abandon its legal position. It continued to implement as agency policy that Proclamation 10014’s ban on entry legally foreclosed the State Department from issuing diversity visas. The State Department 2 applied this policy to the next group of diversity visa lottery winners, those selected for FY 2021. As a result, it refused to schedule interviews at consular offices worldwide for FY 2021 diversity visa winners—a necessary procedural step to visa issuance. This policy continued until shortly after President Joseph Biden took office. In February 2021, the new …
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