Daily Digest, September 8, 2026: Where Things Actually Stand Going Into Today's Court Filing

This is written before today's court filing, not after it. We would rather publish the baseline now and report what the document actually says than guess at it in advance — so treat this as the scoreboard the declaration lands against.

The state of play this morning

We hold 45 cancelled appointments across 20 posts. Of those, 23 were September appointments, and not one has a replacement date. Every confirmed reschedule pair we have — seven of them, running 8 to 70 days — is from the August round.

Overnight brought no reschedules and several more people confirming they have nothing:

• An IR-1 whose 22 September interview was cancelled, with no new date.
• An IR5 at London, 2 September, nothing six days on.
• Casablanca — new to our tracker — a 25 August appointment with no replacement and no further contact two full weeks later.

Six people have still never been told

An IR5 applicant at Mumbai received no cancellation email at all, travelled to the consulate for their 3 September appointment, and was told at the window that immigration interviews were cancelled worldwide. Their case status changed afterwards.

That is the sixth applicant in this wave to find out by turning up, and the second at that post. It has now happened on three continents.

If your appointment is in the next fortnight and you have heard nothing, that silence is not information. Check the scheduling portal, and phone the appointment service — that call remains the only check anyone has reported as reliable.

The medical clock is the quiet cost

Yesterday we reported that biometrics were still going ahead at several posts. Today shows the other side of that.

A K-1 applicant at Ciudad Juárez had completed both biometrics and the medical exam before the cancellation, then travelled home to wait. Their medical is now aging against an appointment that does not exist — and medicals typically run six months.

That does not change our advice from yesterday, which was narrow: do not cancel your biometrics yourself. But it does mean that for anyone who completed a medical in late August, the replacement date is not just an inconvenience — after roughly February it becomes a second medical, at their own cost, and panel physicians have told other applicants they cannot rebook without a request from the post.

What we will be looking for in the filing

The declaration is due today, sworn under penalty of perjury rather than argued in a brief. Reported by people following the case, the court asked it to address how affected cases are being identified, whether documents are being requested, and whether interviews are being scheduled.

Three things we will check it against our own data for:

• Does it distinguish the two groups? People refused under the vacated 75-country policy and people whose appointments were cancelled in the worldwide training pause are in different situations, and the good news so far has belonged almost entirely to the second group.
• Does it give any date? Posts have been telling applicants that processing is paused “pending further instructions” since the start of September. Whether those instructions now exist is the whole question.
• Does it say anything about expiring medicals and DV-2026? Those are the two groups for whom delay converts into permanent loss rather than waiting. Diversity visas cannot be issued after 30 September — 22 days from today.

We will publish what it says, including if it says nothing useful. The tracker is at 20 posts; if you get a date today, that is the single most valuable thing anyone can add.