A federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy that barred the United States government from issuing immigrant visas to people from 75 countries, ruling that the ban was illegal under existing immigration law.
District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, sitting in the Southern District of New York, issued the ruling Friday. The State Department had announced earlier this year that it was halting immigrant visas for citizens of Afghanistan, Brazil, Yemen and dozens of other countries. The administration said people from those nations were likely to need public assistance if they came to the United States.
According to a report by NPR, the policy would have blocked immigrant visas even in cases where consular officers individually reviewed applicants and determined they could support themselves in the United States.
Vargas wrote in her ruling that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality in the issuance of immigrant visas. The Trump administration's policy, she wrote, banned certain people from receiving immigrant visas "based solely on their nationality."
"In many ways, this is not a challenging case," Vargas wrote.
The judge also cited a U.S. diplomatic cable that instructed consulates to refuse immigrant visas to applicants who had already been approved but whose printed visas had not yet left the consulate. Vargas ruled that the policy was "contrary to law" and exceeded the authority of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Her ruling vacated the ban and set aside visa denials that were based only on the policy.
A State Department spokesperson told NPR the administration is "protecting the American people by upholding the highest standards of screening and vetting of visa applicants" and added that the administration does not comment on ongoing litigation. When the ban was originally announced, the State Department said the policy would "remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people."
Susan Welber, supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society, which represented plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the 75-country visa ban was "premised on a fiction" that residents of the targeted nations are likely to use public resources if they come to the United States.
The visa ban was part of a broader push by the Trump administration to restrict both legal and illegal immigration. In June, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, rejecting an executive order Trump signed that tried to bar citizenship for babies born in the United States to parents who entered the country illegally or who are living here on temporary visas. Lower courts had already ruled that executive order unconstitutional before the Supreme Court weighed in.
The case now moves forward with the visa ban vacated, though the administration has signaled it does not intend to step back from its broader immigration enforcement posture.
