World News

New York judge vacates the suspension of immigrant visas for 75 countries

By Staff Writer  |  23 August 2026

The policy told consular officers to refuse immigrant visas on nationality alone. The court held that Congress gave those officers the decision and gave the Secretary of State no part in it.

A federal judge in New York has set aside the policy that suspended the processing of immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries, ruling it contrary to law and in excess of statutory authority. Judge Jeannette Vargas, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, gave judgment on Friday and vacated any visa denial made on the policy alone.

The judge held that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had exceeded his authority in issuing it, and that the policy ran afoul of the Immigration and Nationality Act by mandating the refusal of visas to eligible applicants without any basis in law.

Where the decision belongs

The reasoning turns on who Congress made the decision maker. The statute puts the consular officer at the front of every immigrant visa decision and sets out the criteria that officer must apply to the individual in front of them.

Congress imbued these officers with exclusive authority and discretion to determine if an immigrant is eligible for a visa based upon review of specific and detailed criteria set forth in the statute

Jeannette Vargas, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York

A rule that forbids the issue of any visa to anyone of a given nationality, the judge went on, is a direct abrogation of that statutory scheme. The vice was not the strictness of the policy but its form: it removed the individual assessment the statute requires, and it removed it from the officer the statute names.

What the policy did

The suspension took effect in January. It halted the processing of immigrant visas, meaning visas for people intending to settle indefinitely, for nationals of 75 countries. Examples given by the two accounts read include Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Russia, Somalia, Thailand and Yemen; neither account publishes the full list.

The State Department's stated basis at the time was that immigrants from the countries concerned should not become a public charge. It said that, on Council of Economic Advisers data, more than 30 per cent of households with immigrants from those countries received some form of public assistance.

The case was brought by two non profit organisations together with 11 individuals. Six of them had family members refused visas under the policy. The other five are outside the United States and had filed employment based petitions to come.

We welcome this ruling because, at its heart, this case is about keeping families together

Anna Gallagher, executive director of the immigration legal services network that brought the case

What happens next

The government can appeal, and the State Department said on Saturday that it is protecting the American people by upholding the highest standards of screening and vetting of visa applicants, and that it would not comment on pending litigation. Until an appellate court says otherwise, the policy is vacated and a refusal that rested on it alone no longer stands.

For employers moving people, the practical point is narrow and worth stating carefully. The ruling clears a blanket bar. It does not decide any individual application, and it leaves every other ground of refusal exactly where it was. Anyone whose petition was stopped by the suspension is back in a queue, not through it.