A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration policy that halted immigrant visa processing for applicants from 75 countries, ruling that the State Department exceeded its legal authority.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan said on Friday that the policy, introduced by the State Department in January, violated federal immigration law by effectively allowing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to impose a nationality-based ban on the issuance of immigrant visas.
Vargas described the policy as “patently unlawful,” saying Congress had explicitly limited the secretary of state’s authority over how consular officers process immigrant visa applications.
The suspension affected applicants from a broad range of countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay in Latin America; Bosnia and Albania in the Balkans; Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia; and numerous countries across Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
The State Department had argued that applicants from the designated countries presented a heightened risk of becoming dependent on public assistance and potentially drawing on local, state or federal government resources in the United States.
The department did not immediately comment on the court ruling.
The lawsuit challenging the policy was brought by immigrant advocacy groups Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together, along with immigrant visa applicants and U.S. citizens sponsoring relatives from affected countries.
Vargas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, found that the policy improperly imposed a blanket restriction based on nationality rather than allowing consular officers to assess individual visa applications under existing immigration law.
The ruling represents a legal setback for President Donald Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, which his administration says is necessary to strengthen U.S. security and tighten enforcement of immigration laws.
Civil rights and immigrant advocacy organisations have challenged several elements of the administration’s immigration policies, arguing that they have undermined due process and free speech protections and increased fears of racial and ethnic profiling among minority communities.