A federal court has suspended a State Department policy that blocked immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries, ruling the blanket ban unlawful.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued its ruling on August 21, 2026, in the case Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), et al. v. Rubio.
The court struck down and vacated a Department of State policy that had suspended immigrant visa issuance based on generalised public charge concerns affecting dozens of nations.
The State Department announced the policy in January 2026, directing consular officers to refuse immigrant visas to nationals of 75 designated countries across multiple regions.
Officials justified the policy on the basis that individuals from those countries were considered more likely to rely on public benefits after arriving in the United States.
Under the ban, applicants could be denied immigrant visas regardless of their personal circumstances or whether they were otherwise eligible under existing law.
Crucially, the ban applied based on an individual’s nationality rather than their country of residence, meaning a person could be affected even if living elsewhere.
A citizen of one of the listed countries could be subject to the restriction even if they resided permanently in another country or applied from a third nation entirely.
The list of affected countries included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and dozens more spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
The court found the policy was inconsistent with U.S. immigration law, ruling that it exceeded the Secretary of State’s statutory and regulatory authority in significant ways.
Judges held that the Department of State had no lawful basis to categorically deny visas based solely on nationality without conducting individualised assessments of each applicant.
The court also ruled the ban violated Section 1152(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which explicitly prohibits nationality-based discrimination in visa issuance.
As part of its decision, the court vacated and set aside any visa denial issued solely on the basis of the now-suspended ban, offering potential relief to thousands of affected applicants.
The court ordered the State Department to restore lawful, case-by-case evaluation of visa applications, effectively dismantling the blanket nationality-based restriction put in place at the start of the year.