Civil Rights Groups Sue State Department Over Visa Denials
By Daniel Gil/ Contributing Writer
A number of civil rights groups are suing the State Department along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over their refusal to process applications for a visa lottery system from the six countries President Trump has issued a travel ban against.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Jenner & Block LLP, The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, and the National Immigration Law Center have filed the lawsuit on behalf of lottery program winners from Iran and Yemen.
They are arguing the travel ban the President put in place, which bars nationals from Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya without a “bona fide” relationship with a person or entity in the US from traveling to the country, was illegally put in place. The ban, the plaintiffs claim, only refers to travel from those countries and not to the lottery visa program nor visa issuance.
Scott Michelman, a Senior Staff Attorney of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said in a statement that, “the State Department’s discriminatory visa denial policy goes beyond even the terms of Trump’s unconstitutional entry ban.”
President Trump’s revised immigration ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in June, which garnered widespread outcry from civil liberties organizations across the country, as well as condemnation.
Michelmen continued by saying, “the courts must uphold the rule of law and preserve visa lottery winners’ only realistic chance at someday becoming Americans — an opportunity that the federal government promised them and now is unjustifiably withholding.”
The United States Diversity Visa Program lottery intentionally targets countries which have historically had low immigration rates. Every year the program awards 50,000 visas to immigrants around the world if they qualify for entry under the US government’s rules for a visa. The issuance of a visa does not necessarily mean a person will travel into the United States.
The lawsuit is working under a strict timeline, as well. The lottery winners’ applications must be processed before September 30th, or their slot in the program will expire and they will have to enter the lottery system again.
Omar Jadwat, the director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “A winning lottery spot is a rare and precious thing. If our clients do not receive their visas by September 30, they lose what may be their only chance at becoming Americans.
Jawdat believed the “State Department is violating the law and threatening to run out the clock.”
He also added that, “while we look forward to demonstrating, in separate litigation, that the ban is unconstitutional and should be struck down, the government’s freeze on diversity visa applicants is unlawful and unjustifiable no matter how that case turns out.”
For the lottery winners, their inability to be granted a visa has hit them hard.
Radad Furooz, the plaintiff represented in the case, said he “sold everything I had to get the chance to travel to the U.S.A.,” and that now he has, “nothing and nowhere to go now. The executive order travel ban has destroyed my dreams.”