The Trump administration must resume processing visas for people from 75 countries that the government deemed likely to become a “public charge,” a federal judge in New York ruled Friday, curbing one of the latest efforts to restrict legal immigration pathways to the United States.
The halt to visa processing began in January, affecting dozens of countries in every corner of the globe. It was meant to limit visas for people the government said would probably rely on public benefits for their basic needs, long a complaint from President Donald Trump.
But U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled that the policy “represents a direct abrogation” of consular officers’ exclusive, congressionally granted authority to determine if someone is eligible for a visa.
Vargas also said the nationality-based visa ban, which applied to all nationals of the 75 countries no matter their income or economic status, ignores antidiscrimination protections in federal immigration law.
Vargas’s order came in response to a lawsuit from two nonprofit groups and 11 individuals: six people whose family members’ visa applications had been rejected under the freeze, and another five who had filed work-related petitions to come to the United States.
Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together, one of the groups that sued, welcomed the ruling against a policy that he said lacked solid evidence or rationale.
“The decision on whether [someone should] receive a visa should be an individual decision,” he said. “It shouldn’t be based on profiling on stereotypes of certain countries.”
The State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it was not clear if or how soon visa processing would resume.
The January policy did not affect visas that had already been issued. Nor did it apply to nonimmigrant visas, such as those granted to students and tourists, but otherwise prevented consular officers from issuing visas on work or family grounds.
Experts said that the indefinite pause would turn away nearly half of all legal immigrants over a one-year period. People from the countries affected, many of them in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, account for 40 to 45 percent of all immigrant visas.
The visa freeze followed a broader State Department directive in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges.”
According to the Associated Press, State Department officials cited data from the Council of Economic Advisers noting that more than 30 percent of households with immigrants from the targeted countries received some form of public assistance.
But Kassa, of African Communities Together, said such an approach painted all people from the targeted countries with an overly broad brush. The purpose of these visas, he noted, is often to reunite families.
The visa freeze had been one of many ways in which State Department has sought to restrict migration to the U.S. in recent months.
Also last year, the Trump administration expanded a travel ban on entry to the United States to the citizens of 39 countries after an Afghan immigrant was charged in the shooting of two National Guard troops. Of those countries, 24 were included in the suspension of visa processing.
A federal judge in June ordered the federal government to resume processing citizenship, green-card and work permit applications for people affected by the ban.
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