A controversial Trump administration immigration policy that froze processing of immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries — including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia — has been struck down by a federal judge in New York, who ruled the measure exceeded executive authority and violated existing U.S. immigration law.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, appointed to the bench during the Biden presidency, ruled Friday that the policy was fundamentally unlawful and went far beyond the statutory powers granted to the executive branch. In her ruling, Vargas found that then-Secretary of State Marco Rubio abused his authority by rolling out the policy, which directly conflicted with the terms of the Immigration and Nationality Act by ordering automatic visa refusals for otherwise eligible applicants with no legal grounding.
The judge emphasized that the policy undermined a core structural requirement set by Congress, which reserves final, exclusive authority over individual visa decisions for trained consular officers, not blanket executive orders. “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,” Vargas wrote in her opinion. “The Policy, which categorically prohibits the issuance of immigrant visas based upon the nationality of the applicant, represents a direct abrogation of this statutory scheme.”
The policy was first challenged in court by two nonprofit advocacy groups and 11 individual plaintiffs. Among those plaintiffs were six people whose immediate family members had already been blocked from receiving visas under the rule, while five other foreign-based plaintiffs had submitted approved employment-based immigration petitions that were put on hold.
Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Center for Legal Inclusiveness & Immigration Counseling (CLINIC) — one of the lead plaintiff organizations that supports a national network of immigration legal service providers — celebrated the ruling in a public statement. “We welcome this ruling because, at its heart, this case is about keeping families together,” Gallagher said. She added, “Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold the dignity of every person and recognize the family as the foundation of society. This decision affirms both those values and the rule of law, allowing families to once again move forward toward reunification.”
The now-vacated policy was part of a broader series of restrictive immigration actions rolled out by the Trump administration, which put in place a growing list of travel and visa restrictions targeting majority African, Asian, and Latin American countries. When asked for comment on the ruling Saturday, a State Department spokesperson only reiterated the administration’s original framing of the policy, saying it was designed to “protect the American people by upholding the highest standards of screening and vetting of visa applicants” and declined to comment on ongoing litigation.
When the policy was first introduced, it was framed as an extension of a broader November executive order tightening rules for immigrants deemed at risk of becoming so-called “public charges” — a term referring to new immigrants who may access public assistance programs. At the time, the State Department cited Council of Economic Advisers data claiming more than 30 percent of immigrant households from the 75 named countries used at least one form of public benefit. The policy applied to immigrant visa processing specifically, but a separate confidential cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates also mandated heightened scrutiny for non-immigrant visa applicants, requiring them to prove they would not access public benefits during their U.S. stay and mandating additional financial documentation for applicants flagged as high risk.
Friday’s ruling marks the latest in a string of court victories for immigration advocates challenging the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration agenda. Just three months prior, in June, another federal judge struck down a separate Trump-era policy that created new barriers to entry and legal status for immigrants from dozens of countries, impacting asylum claims, work permits, green card applications, and citizenship pathways. In that case, the judge ruled the policy had thrown the lives of thousands of immigrants “into indeterminate legal limbo” and found U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had deliberately ignored existing statutory law in implementing the rule.