The federal court ruling benefits diversity visa applicants from nations such as Afghanistan, Burma, Togo, Somalia and Iran.

The ruling involved a subset of applicants who had won the right to apply for a visa under a lottery system aimed at fostering diversity.

A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the State Department can’t deny visas to foreign nationals on the basis of the travel ban that President Donald Trump imposed on 19 countries in June. Although the State Department is limited in this regard,