Govind Tekale
A federal judge in New York ruled Friday that President Trump’s ban on immigrant visas for 75 countries was unlawful and ordered it stopped. The decision reopens a green-card path for families from dozens of nations that the administration had shut in January.
Judge Jeannette Vargas of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York found the suspension “patently unlawful” and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority under immigration law. The ban, which took effect January 21, 2026, blocked immigrant-visa applications from Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay in Latin America; Bosnia and Albania in the Balkans; Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia; and dozens of African, Middle Eastern, and Caribbean nations.
The ruling is limited to immigrant visas—the kind used for permanent residency. Tourist and student visas remain unaffected. But the reach is large: the Cato Institute estimates nearly 9 out of 10 African applicants for green cards and about 4 out of 10 Asian applicants fell under the ban. The broader crackdown on legal immigration has played out across several Trump administration actions this year, including new birthright citizenship orders and an expanding use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations.
Vargas pointed to an internal State Department cable as the core problem. The cable told US consular officers abroad to refuse immigrant visas automatically—even when an applicant passed the required “public charge” review that checks whether someone might need government assistance. “The outcome is predetermined,” Vargas wrote. “The visa will be refused.” The Associated Press reports the ruling is the latest instance of courts blocking the administration’s immigration agenda, and court records published by JURIST show Vargas called the policy “a direct abrogation” of the statutory scheme.
The lawsuit was brought by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, a charity that helps immigrants, and African Communities Together, along with US citizens who said they were being separated from family members in Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica, and Guatemala. The State Department said it would not comment on pending litigation.
The Trump administration can appeal Vargas’s decision. Both sides have until September 11 to propose how the court should fix the problem—whether to reopen rejected applications or reinstate visas. The ruling struck down a policy that had been in force for roughly eight months.
