Judge dismisses class-action challenge to travel ban Search Search Keyword:

The Washington Times reports:

A federal judge in Washington who had been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration reversed course Tuesday and ruled she could not force the State Department to grant visa lottery approvals to would-be immigrants from Iran and Yemen.

The complicated case doesn’t directly challenge President Trump’s travel ban, but it does deliver a rare lower-court legal victory on one aspect of the ban, which has restricted visits and immigration from a number of majority-Muslim nations.

Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the government had managed to run out the clock on would-be immigrants from Yemen and Iran, and there is no longer anything she can do to preserve their pathway to immigration.

“There is no longer any meaningful relief this court can provide. Therefore, it must dismiss this case as moot,” she wrote.

The case had been at the nexus of two controversial policies: Mr. Trump’s travel ban and the diversity visa lottery, which doles out immigration passes based on chance.

The plaintiffs — citizens of Iran and Yemen — managed to win the lottery in fiscal year 2017, meaning their names were picked out of millions of people who entered for some of the 50,000 slots.

Another Donald Trump win.