A federal judge in the United States on Friday overturned the Trump administration’s ban on issuing visas to immigrants from 75 countries, ruling that it was “against the law” and exceeded the legal authority vested in Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Last January, the US State Department stopped issuing immigrant visas to citizens of nearly 40% of the world's countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Haiti, Somalia and Russia, in a move it said was aimed at preventing the entry of people who may "depend on social welfare and public benefits."
Judge Janet Vargas of the Federal District Court in Manhattan objected to the State Department's justifications for this policy and ordered that any decision denying a visa based solely on this reason be vacated, in another setback to the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.
Under the law, an immigrant may be rejected as potentially becoming a “public charge” (a person expected to depend on government support) only after a consular officer has assessed the person’s financial situation, age, health, skills, and family circumstances.
Judge Vargas concluded that, in practice, American employees were instructed to deny visa applications, even to applicants who were able to support themselves, based solely on the country from which they came.
The visa ban stopped granting permanent resident visas to people seeking to join family members or who obtain jobs in the United States, but it did not apply to nonimmigrant visas, such as tourist or student visas.
Rubio issued a telegram to all diplomatic and consular missions - included in the case's records - asking staff to reject applicants' applications, even in cases where the applicant provides "additional evidence proving that he exceeds the reason for rejection that he may become a burden on public funds."
“The outcome is predetermined: the visa will be denied,” Vargas wrote. She said this policy conflicts with a 1965 law prohibiting discrimination in granting visas on the basis of nationality, and also conflicts with a separate provision that prevents the Secretary of State from interfering in how consular officers make decisions about individual cases.
Rejection decisions based on other legal grounds will remain valid, even in cases where the employee also relied on the ban, making the expected number of refusal decisions unclear.
Most of these 75 countries are non-European countries, distributed between the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, and include many of the United States’ partners, including Jordan, Egypt, and Georgia. The State Department based its list on data from the Council of Economic Advisers, and targeted countries in which more than 30% of migrant families receive some type of public assistance.
Six American citizens were among the list of plaintiffs who submitted requests for family reunification, and said that the ban decision prevented their relatives in Ghana, Jamaica, Guatemala, and Ethiopia from obtaining entry visas.
The US administration achieved success on a specific legal point, as the judge upheld that this policy is not the type of official rules that must be presented for public discussion before its implementation begins.
While presenting their arguments, the US administration’s legal team relied on the 2018 Supreme Court decision that upheld the third version of the travel ban imposed by Trump in his first term, which banned the entry of citizens of many countries, most of which are Muslim-majority. But Vargas said that this case depends on the president's authority to determine who is allowed to enter the country, while the visa ban issue is based on a different issue: whether a visa may be issued at all.
Judge Vargas, appointed by former President Joe Biden, gave both sides until September 11 to propose how to resolve the remainder of the case. The administration has the right to appeal the ruling.
