On Sept. 10, 2026, Judge Edward J. Davila issued an Order Enforcing Preliminary Injunction in Medani v. Trump, No. 5:26-cv-06332-EJD (N.D. Cal.), ECF No. 93, after the plaintiffs went back to court to enforce it. The Aug. 28 injunction had temporarily vacated three policies — the State Department's "DV Pause" and "75-Country Pause," and, separately, the USCIS Diversity Visa Hold under Policy Memorandum PM-602-0193, which we covered on its own since it affects pending adjustment of status applications — and ordered DOS, "to the extent practicable and in good faith," to "take all reasonable steps during the remainder of the Diversity Visa fiscal year" to reconsider applications refused solely under the DOS DV Pause or the DOS 75-Country Pause and resume ordinary adjudication.
The order is explicit that USCIS is not subject to this enforcement motion, so the reconsideration duty and the reporting schedule below reach DOS's consular processing, not USCIS's handling of pending adjustment of status applications under the separately vacated USCIS hold.
On Sept. 8, the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion to enforce that injunction, and the order records that in its opposition brief, DOS "did not deny that it had not scheduled or conducted a single interview, or issued a single Diversity Visa, since the Court's Order." The Department said it had spent the time since the injunction developing guidance, and its counsel told the court a cable went out to consulates and embassies on the morning of the hearing.
The court wrote that it was "troubled" both by the failure to schedule a single interview and by DOS's delay in responding, noting that "with each day that passes, hundreds of selectees lose their opportunity to receive a Diversity Visa before the end of the fiscal year" — by the Department's own figures, it adjudicated 6,890 Diversity Visa applications worldwide in September 2025, approximately 230 a day.
The court ordered DOS to file a status report by 12:00 p.m. Pacific every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the end of the fiscal year, beginning Sept. 14, covering recent compliance steps, interviews scheduled and held, and visas issued and denied. It denied the plaintiffs' other requested relief for now and invited further briefing on whether there has been full compliance and, if not, whether a finding of contempt and what sanctions would be appropriate.
The calendar is the whole problem. The court pointed to Goodluck v. Biden, 104 F.4th 920 (D.C. Cir. 2024), which held that a district court lacks authority to order DOS to process and adjudicate diversity visa applications past the fiscal year — while observing that Goodluck expressly did not decide whether contempt sanctions could still issue against the government. The FY-2026 Diversity Visa year ended Sept. 30, 2026; the update below describes what the court did about that.
Since then, the government filed its first status report under that three-times-a-week schedule on Sept. 14 and another on Sept. 16, and on Sept. 15 the court clarified that it may file those reports without first obtaining the plaintiffs' position on them. We are not summarizing the contents of the reports here; we have not been able to verify the underlying figures independently, and we will not guess at them.
Enforcement is also still being litigated, and it escalated again in the final week before the deadline. On Sept. 13 the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion for discovery in aid of enforcing the injunction, and the court held a further status conference on Sept. 21. On Sept. 24, 2026, the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion for supplemental relief (ECF No. 121), citing continuing reports that DV interviews are not being scheduled and that second-notice letters are stalling; the court set an expedited briefing schedule and a hearing for Sept. 29, 2026 — one day before the fiscal year closes. As of Sept. 26, 2026, the injunction and the enforcement order both remained in effect with no appeal or stay; developments since then are below.
Update as of Oct. 19, 2026: on Sept. 30 the court found the State Department's compliance "less than substantial" and ordered an additional ten days of processing past the end of the 2026 fiscal year (ECF No. 137). The order is directed to the State Department; the court noted that USCIS is not subject to that motion. On Oct. 1 the court granted the Department a temporary stay of up to ten days to develop guidance for consular posts and update its systems, then implement the order (ECF No. 141). On Oct. 13 the court set the ten-day processing window to run from Oct. 14 through Oct. 23, 2026 (local time at each post) and moved the status conference to Oct. 22, 2026, to be held remotely (ECF No. 149). On Oct. 14 the government filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit from the injunction and the enforcement orders (ECF No. 152). A stipulation about the Oct. 13 order (ECF No. 154) was pending as of Oct. 19, so the dates could change.
If you are an FY-2026 DV selectee still waiting on a consular interview, this order is aimed at that delay, but its terms and timing are still changing, so confirm your own status with the consulate. A pending adjustment of status application affected by the separate USCIS hold is not covered by this order. Talk to us before making decisions based on this item.