Judge Strikes Down Trump’s 75-Country Visa Ban
A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s suspension of immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries, delivering a significant legal setback to the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda. U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York ruled on Friday that the policy was “patently unlawful” and exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
The ruling, issued in a lawsuit brought by immigrant rights groups Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together, vacates the 75-country policy in its entirety and sets aside visa refusals based solely on the suspension, sending those applications back to consular officers for further review.
The Policy and Its Rationale
The State Department announced the suspension on January 14, 2026, and it took effect on January 21. The policy instructed consular officers to refuse immigrant visas under Section 221(g) of the INA for applicants from designated countries, which included nations from Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay), the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica, Bahamas), the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina), South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan), Africa, the Middle East, and other regions including Russia and Thailand.
According to Al Jazeera, the State Department justified the policy by saying applicants from those countries were “at a high risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state and federal government resources in the United States.” Countries were generally selected when government data showed that more than 30% of immigrant households from those nations received some form of public assistance.
The Court’s Reasoning
In her 61-page opinion, Vargas found that the policy conflicted with federal immigration law in multiple ways. The judge ruled that the INA explicitly prohibits nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas, and that Congress placed the ultimate power to grant or refuse visas with consular officers, not the Secretary of State.
“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,” Vargas wrote in her ruling.
As USA Today reported, Vargas also distinguished the case from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), which upheld the president’s first-term travel restrictions. She argued that Trump v. Hawaii concerned the President’s authority to restrict entry into the United States, while Rubio’s policy directly controlled the issuance of immigrant visas, which is governed by specific statutory provisions.
The judge described the policy’s legal defects as “comprehensive, fundamental, and severe,” and vacated it under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Broader Immigration Crackdown
The 75-country visa ban was part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. According to NPR, the policy followed a broader travel ban covering 39 countries that took effect January 1, and a pause on diversity visa issuance in late December. The administration has also imposed the lowest refugee admissions cap in US history, increased H-1B visa fees to $100,000 per application, and recorded net negative immigration in 2025 for the first time in 50 years.
This is the second major court defeat for the administration’s immigration restrictions. In June, District Judge John McConnell struck down Trump’s bar on asylum and visa processing for 39 countries, saying the policy “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo.”
Impact and Next Steps
The ruling does not automatically grant visas to affected applicants. Consular officers may still reject applicants on public-charge, criminal, national-security, fraud, or other lawful grounds. However, the decision means that immigrant visa applications from the 75 affected countries can now be processed again, and visa refusals based solely on the suspension will be set aside.
The Trump administration may appeal the ruling and request a stay from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The order itself does not include a stay. Vargas ordered the parties to submit a joint letter by September 11 outlining how remaining claims in the case should proceed.
The State Department had not yet commented on the ruling as of the time of reporting. Immigration advocates celebrated the decision as a victory for the rule of law, with Efrén Olivares of the National Immigration Law Center noting that “the only thing we’re asking here in this case is that the government follow the law and conduct individualized assessments of visa applicants and not discriminate based on nationality against nearly half of the countries in the world.”
What to Watch For
Legal observers will be watching closely to see whether the administration appeals to the Second Circuit and whether it seeks an emergency stay. The case could potentially reach the Supreme Court, which would test the limits of executive authority over immigration policy. For the families and individuals affected by the ban, the ruling offers a path forward, but the legal battle over the administration’s immigration agenda is far from over.