Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan struck down the 75-country visa pause on Friday, ruling that the State Department’s suspension of immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries was unlawful. The decision puts a halt to a nationality-based policy that had been in effect since January and affected applicants across Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bosnia, Albania, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and much of Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
The case was brought by Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together, along with applicants for immigrant visas and US citizens sponsoring family members from the designated countries. Their challenge centered on a policy that reached far beyond one region and cut across family and work cases at the consular stage.
Manhattan ruling on 75 countries
Vargas wrote that the policy was “patently unlawful” and that it exceeded Marco Rubio’s statutory authority. She also wrote that federal immigration law stripped the secretary of state of authority over consular officers’ adjudication of immigrant visas, and that the policy “categorically prohibits the issuance of immigrant visas based upon the nationality of the applicant.”
That finding matters for people whose cases were paused after January. Applicants from the listed countries had been waiting inside a system that had been frozen by nationality, not by any individualized review of their files.
State Department rationale challenged
The State Department said applicants from those countries were at a high risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state and federal government resources in the United States. Judge Jeannette Vargas rejected that justification in the Southern District of New York, placing the department’s stated reason against the federal immigration statute she said controlled the process.
The Center for Constitutional Rights said the freeze was one of several restrictions the administration imposed in rapid succession. That sequence included a pause on diversity visa issuance in late December and a broader travel ban covering 39 countries that took effect on January 1, all before the 75-country suspension began in January.
What affected applicants face now
For applicants from Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bosnia, Albania, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the ruling removes the legal foundation for a suspension that had blocked immigrant visa issuance on nationality alone. Families with sponsoring US citizens, whose cases were included in the lawsuit, now have a court decision to point to as they press for processing to resume.
Whether the State Department will comply with the ruling or appeal it is not stated. For now, the operative change is the court’s order itself: a Manhattan judge has found the 75-country visa pause unlawful, and the policy that stopped immigrant visa issuance since January no longer stands on the same footing it did before Friday.
