A federal judge in New York struck down the Trump administration sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries, ruling the policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio statutory authority and violated decades-old anti-discrimination protections.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas issued a 61-page ruling on Friday in CLINIC v. Rubio, ordering the State Department to restore lawful, case-by-case evaluation of visa applications from the affected nations. The decision immediately ends the blanket halt that had frozen hundreds of thousands of pending applications since it took effect in January.
Ruling: Ban Violated Immigration Law
Judge Vargas held that the policy ran afoul of Section 1152(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which prohibits nationality-based discrimination in issuing visas. The administration had cited public charge risk as its justification, but the court found the stated rationale did not support a categorical ban on entire nationalities.
The ruling requires embassies and consulates to resume scheduling interviews and processing applications for nationals of all 75 listed countries. The affected nations span multiple continents and include countries such as Russia, Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fiji, and Thailand.
The suspension had upended the lives of families, employment-based applicants, and Diversity Visa lottery winners whose cases were frozen for months. While the ruling restores the right to individualized review, it does not guarantee automatic approval. Applicants must still meet standard legal requirements through normal consular channels.
Broader Legal Context
The decision represents the broadest judicial rebuke yet of the administration approach to immigration processing. A separate case challenging a related USCIS policy that suspended processing for 39 nations remains pending and was not affected by Friday ruling.
Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said the ruling was a tremendous victory for the rule of law and noted that the suspension of lawful visa processing across 75 countries separated spouses, parents, and children who were simply following the legal immigration process.
The case was brought by the National Immigration Law Center, Democracy Forward, the Legal Aid Society, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Colombo and Hurd on behalf of CLINIC, African Communities Together, and individual plaintiffs.
The Department of Justice had not confirmed as of late Friday whether it would seek an emergency stay from an appeals court, leaving the nationwide vacatur in effect while consular posts work through resumption procedures.
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