{"id":328684,"date":"2026-08-24T20:40:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328684\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:40:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:40:51","slug":"manhattan-federal-judge-strikes-down-trump-admin-policy-that-banned-issuing-visas-to-people-from-75-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328684\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan federal judge strikes down Trump admin policy that banned issuing visas to people from 75 countries"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan federal judge ruled<\/a> the Trump administration was not allowed to implement a blanket ban on issuing visas to people from 75 countries, striking down a policy that left thousands of people from 40% of the world\u2019s nations in limbo.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Jeanette Vargas declared Friday that the U.S. Department of State overstepped its authority and acted \u201ccontrary to law\u201d when it announced it would suspend issuing visas to people from 75 countries this past January on the unfounded determination that immigrants from those countries pose a high risk of becoming a \u201cpublic charge,\u201d or are highly likely to use welfare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The State Department was not permitted to make that decision, Vargas said, because it amounted to nationality-based discrimination, which a federal law called the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) prohibits when issuing visas.<\/p>\n

Moreover, all visa applications must be decided on an individual basis, the judge ruled \u2014 so making a blanket determination for thousands of people runs afoul of federal policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, this is not a challenging case,\u201d Vargas, a Biden appointee, wrote. \u201cCongress enacted comprehensive procedures related to the issuance or refusal of immigrant visas \u2026 Consular officers are required to conduct an individualized assessment of applicants and to refuse visas only to those whom the consular officer finds ineligible. The [Trump administration] nonetheless directs consular officers to refuse eligible applicants \u2026 [and] categorically bans nationals of 75 countries from receiving immigrant visas, even when otherwise eligible, based solely on their nationality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe INA prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality in the issuance of immigrant visas,\u201d Vargas continued. \u201cThis policy is thus patently unlawful and must be vacated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment on the decision.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Vargas\u2019s ruling comes after a group of immigrants\u2019 rights organizations, including the Catholic Legal Immigration Network and Legal Aid Society, brought a lawsuit challenging the policy. Legal Aid attorney Hasan Shafiqullah said that, beyond the policy being unlawful, it also did not make much sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the people applying for visas were coming to the United States with jobs lined up or to join family already living here who could support them, meaning it would be unlikely for those people to end up on welfare at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just didn\u2019t even make sense,\u201d Shafiqullah said of the policy. \u201cWe have folks who \u2026 were already granted national interest waivers, so that the minute they come here, they\u2019re going to be stepping into a job where it\u2019s in the national interest that they come here and work. These are going to be high-paying jobs for highly skilled workers. These are not folks who are going to come here and be on welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say, \u2018We\u2019re not going to use a case-by-case evaluation. We\u2019re just going to say anybody from these countries is rejected because you\u2019re all going to be on welfare\u2019 is just irrational, and that makes the policy unlawful,\u201d the attorney added. Immigration and consulate officers are supposed to assess a person in their entirety \u2013 considering their age, health, family status, education, skills, assets, resources and financial status when coming to an individualized conclusion on whether or not they\u2019d be likely to become a public charge.<\/p>\n

What should immigrants who were blocked by the ban do now, and what should those who were already partially through the application process when it went into effect expect? Shafiqullah said people should expect the process to proceed forward as it would have before.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone whose application was stalled or refused due to this policy should have their case reconsidered,\u201d Shafiqullah said. \u201cAnd, assuming they\u2019re otherwise eligible, they should be approved now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The immediate next steps will depend on how far people got in the process before the rule change went into effect. If they had already been interviewed at their consulate, and everything would have been approved if this change hadn\u2019t occurred, then it should be a matter of the officer just reviewing their file, possibly requesting necessary updates and issuing approval.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If an individual did not have an interview, then their consular officials should send out an interview notice and request the person come in for one now, Shafiquallah said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Trump administrations have consistently attempted to use unfounded allegations that people will become public charges via welfare use as reasons to ban immigrants from the country, Shafiquallah said. <\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society pushed back on similar visa bans during Trump\u2019s first term, and this summer the president floated a proposal<\/a> to make immigrants pay $100,000 to get a green card to prove they wouldn\u2019t become a public charge, something lawyers told amNewYork was likely illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more you look at the variety of reasons, you realize it\u2019s all pretextual. It\u2019s really just to stop immigration across the board,\u201d Shafiquallah said. \u201cThat\u2019s really what they\u2019re trying to do, both pushing people out of the country through deportation if they\u2019re here, and trying to keep them out in the first instance if they\u2019re not here. It\u2019s part of a nationalist agenda to stop immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manhattan federal judge ruled the Trump administration was not allowed to implement a blanket ban on issuing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2301,2710,3782,75,84,83,9,24,63,613,15362,1069,655],"class_list":["post-328684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-immigration","tag-law","tag-legal-aid-society","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pm-newsletter","tag-southern-district-of-new-york","tag-trump","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}