Judge saves US visas for some, not all lottery winners

By AMY TAXIN
Associated Press

A U.S. judge has set aside roughly 7,000 visas allowing people who won a lottery aimed at increasing the country’s diversity to try to go to the United States. The judge in Washington issued the order late Thursday after the government issued only a fraction of the visas allocated for the past year. It came after the State Department gave out only 27% of up to 55,000 diversity visas allotted for the fiscal year that ended in September, citing pandemic-related issues. The judge says that’s only part of the problem, and the agency has made these applicants a lower priority. A State Department official declined to comment.