Hundreds of Moroccan winners of the U.S. Diversity Visa lottery risk losing their chance for American residency as the State Department fails to schedule mandatory consular interviews ahead of the program’s September 30 deadline.
Despite having case numbers marked “current” for months in official visa bulletins, DV-2025 lottery winners report being trapped in bureaucratic limbo with no interview appointments at the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca. The delays have prompted 104 applicants to petition American diplomatic officials and drawn intervention from Moroccan human rights organizations.
“We’ve waited over 12 months and have lost faith in the transparency of the process,” one affected applicant who requested anonymity told Morocco World News outlet. Many winners resigned from jobs or abandoned educational programs in preparation for relocation, only to find themselves stalled indefinitely, the outlet said.
The bottleneck is imputed to the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca which has released minimal interview slots compared to Morocco’s typical annual allocation.
Conflicting messages from U.S. authorities have compounded frustrations. The Kentucky Consular Center confirms cases are ready for scheduling, while the Casablanca consulate maintains it has not received the files for processing.
The Moroccan Organization for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption escalated concerns to the U.S. Ambassador in Rabat on August 4, citing potential violations of international equality principles.
The delays coincide with the Trump administration’s sweeping State Department restructuring, which eliminated 1,300 positions in a single day last month. Critics argue the downsizing has particularly impacted visa processing in regions deemed lower priority, including Africa.
For Moroccan applicants, the lottery represents rare legal pathway to immigrate to the U.S.
