September 17, 2026
To many outside observers, the congressionally mandated Diversity Visa program appears, at first blush, to be a great opportunity to spread the American dream across the world. After all, the program allows almost anyone possessing a high school education to apply for a visa to bring themselves, their spouse, and their children to the United States. Far from advancing American interests abroad, however, the program is rife with abuse and siphons limited government resources away from higher-priority needs.
The first of the perennial issues with the Diversity Visa program is that it attracts excessive litigation due to the high stakes and aggressive timelines. Because the visas must be issued by September 30 each year, applicants who are affected by changes in visa policy are motivated to sue. Such litigation is both costly and time-consuming for the State Department and the Department of Justice. It also pulls away high-level administrators from more important tasks, such as fraud prevention, reducing visa overstays, and ensuring that new immigrants do not excessively consume public resources. A non-exhaustive list of major litigation against the Department of State solely over the Diversity Visa program may be found below:
• E.B. v. Department of State — 2019
• Gomez v. Trump — 2020
• Filazapovich v. Department of State — 2021
• Goh v. Department of State — 2021
• Goodluck v. Biden — 2021
• Rai v. Biden — 2021
• Jacob v. Biden — 2021
• Nepal v. Department of State — 2021
• Tesfaye v. Blinken — 2022
• Thein v. Trump — 2025
• Ivanov v. Trump — 2026
• Chersak v. Department of State — 2026
• Saito v. Department of State — 2026
• Medani v. Trump — 2026
As one can see, these lawsuits have not been aimed exclusively at the policies of any one party. In fact, much of the litigation listed above stemmed from the Department of State’s COVID-19 policies, which prioritized adoptions, family reunification, and special immigrant visas over the Diversity Visa program. Presidential proclamations, particularly those suspending entry from particular countries, have also been heavily litigated. The State Department was eventually ordered to issue visas to applicants who were statutorily ineligible to enter the United States, most likely to allow these visa holders to travel to the United States and claim asylum.
While litigation drains the legal resources of the Department of State and Department of Justice, fraud drains the pockets of Diversity Visa applicants before they ever reach the visa window. Organized crime rings across the world are responsible for millions of applications each year. The setup is relatively simple: for free or a low fee, a “visa services” company will handle the Diversity Visa application process for as many people as possible, entering their own contact information rather than the actual applicant’s details. If selected, the applicants have no way of accessing the system to schedule an interview on their own – they are beholden to the group that entered the information for them. Based on prior reporting, some of these groups charged families $15,000 for access to their own visa applications.
While this would be outrageous even if it occurred in a vacuum, organized crime rings that specialize in immigration matters do not commit just one type of fraud. They also arrange sham marriages, forge educational documents, and engage in human smuggling. For example, four Congolese nationals pleaded guilty to a total of 10 counts of immigration-related fraud according to a recent Department of Justice press release, including Diversity Visa fraud, marriage fraud, and a fraudulent petition for a “parent” who was not related to the petitioner. Putting money into the pockets of these fraud rings allows them to obtain nonimmigrant visas by presenting themselves as credible tourists or business travelers, allowing them to further abuse the immigration system.
Because these organized crime rings are motivated by money, they have no compunction against separating families, often for years at a time, by their actions. It is very common for these rings to re-use the same Diversity Visa application over and over again for a family. In countries where it is common to have large families, this means that young children are often left off the initial application. At other times, including a recent case involving a citizen of the Ivory Coast, the applicants were coached to leave some children off in order to avoid a “public charge” ineligibility, as a larger family is more likely to need public assistance upon arrival in the United States.
Regardless of why these young children are not included, the results are the same. While the rest of the family immigrates to the United States, these children are left in the care of other family members, living away from their siblings and parents until a family-based immigration petition is approved. And, in some cases, these children are never reunited with the rest of their immediate family, either because the parents cannot afford to care for them in the United States or because their petition is flagged for fraud and refused yet the parents successfully avoid deportation.
While some of the issues with the Diversity Visa program raised above can be mitigated, none are able to be eliminated through executive action alone. The Department of State is obligated to run the Diversity Visa program each year, and, each year, the biggest winners are those who facilitate visa fraud on a massive scale, either from within the United States or abroad. The losers will continue to be the American people, the United States government, and the children whose only “mistake” was to be left off of the Diversity Visa application form. It is time for Congress to recognize that the entire program largely benefits criminals and pull the plug.
