A federal judge in Manhattan has struck down the Trump administration’s sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for citizens of 75 countries, calling the policy “patently unlawful” and finding it exceeded the government’s statutory authority.
Judge Jeannette Vargas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued the ruling on Friday, determining that the State Department’s blanket freeze on immigrant visa applications from dozens of nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East conflicted directly with the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The policy, which took effect on January 21, halted the processing of all immigrant visa applications from the affected countries. The administration justified the move as a measure to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who might become dependent on public benefits, citing public charge concerns.
Second Court to Rule Against the Ban
Vargas’s decision marks the second time a federal court has found the visa suspension unlawful. In July, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the same policy represented an exercise of authority specifically denied to the State Department by Congress.
Mehta held that the public charge framework issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio could not be used to impose a blanket refusal on visa applicants from entire countries. Congress had entrusted visa decisions to individual consular officers who must evaluate each case on its own merits, the judge found.
Countries Affected Span Multiple Continents
The 75 countries subject to the suspension included nations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Among them were Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Somalia, Haiti, Venezuela and Syria. The freeze applied only to immigrant visa categories, not to temporary tourist or business visas that make up the majority of visa applications.
Immigration advocates and civil rights organizations had filed multiple lawsuits challenging the ban. They argued the freeze was imposed without individualized review, leaving thousands of families, workers and employers in legal limbo for months.
“Congress entrusted visa decisions to consular officers applying the law to each case,” said an attorney for the plaintiffs following the earlier D.C. ruling. “The State Department cannot require individualized review and then dictate refusal regardless of the result.”
The rulings create significant legal headwinds for the administration’s broader immigration enforcement agenda. Both courts found that USCIS and the State Department lacked the statutory and regulatory authority to adopt the policies and that the measures were influenced by considerations that immigration authorities are prohibited from using in decision-making.
The State Department has not yet indicated whether it will appeal Vargas’s ruling. Legal experts note that the government faces an uphill battle, as both courts arrived at the same conclusion on different grounds. The decisions could force the administration to resume processing hundreds of thousands of visa applications that have been stalled since January.
Sources: Al Jazeera; CNN; Bloomberg Law
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