(CNN) — The Trump administration’s ban on visas for immigrants from 75 countries was struck down by a federal judge on Friday, who ruled it was “contrary to law” and outside the statutory authority of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In January, the State Department paused the issuance of immigrant visas from almost 40% of the world’s nations – including Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Haiti, Somalia and Russia – in a move that it said would prevent the entry of people who would “take welfare and public benefits.”
Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Federal District Court in Manhattan took issue with the State Department’s rationale for the policy, reversing any visa denial based solely on it – in another setback to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Under the law, an immigrant can only be turned away as a likely “public charge” (someone expected to depend on government support) after a consular officer weighs that person’s own finances, age, health, skills and family situation.
Judge Vargas found that, in practice, US officers were ordered to reject visas for applicants, even those who could support themselves, solely based on the country they came from.
The visa ban halted permanent-residence visas for people joining family members or taking jobs in the US, but did not apply to nonimmigrant visas such as tourist or student visas.
A cable that Rubio sent to every diplomatic and consular post, and which was entered into the case record, directed officers to refuse applicants even when someone “provides additional evidence that demonstrates he or she overcomes the public charge refusal.”
“The outcome is predetermined,” Vargas wrote. “The visa will be refused.” The policy, she said, ran afoul of a 1965 law barring discrimination by nationality in granting visas, and of a separate provision denying the secretary of state any say over how consular officers decide individual cases.
Denials that rested on other legal grounds stand, even where an officer also cited the ban, leaving the number of reversals expected unclear.
Most of the 75 countries are non-European, spanning the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and count several US partners among them, including Jordan, Egypt and Georgia. The State Department drew its list from Council of Economic Advisers data, targeting nations where more than 30 percent of immigrant households received some form of public assistance.
Among the plaintiffs were six US citizens who filed family-based petitions and said the ban blocked relatives in Ghana, Jamaica, Guatemala and Ethiopia from obtaining visas. Five Colombians who had applied through job-based visas, one of whom received a denial notice that cited the policy, were also part of the case.
The administration did win on one narrower point, with the judge agreeing the policy was not the kind of formal rule that must be opened to public comment before being implemented.
In arguing their case, the administration’s legal team leaned on a 2018 Supreme Court decision upholding the third version of Trump’s first-term travel ban, which barred entry by nationals of several countries, most of them majority-Muslim. But Vargas said that case turned on the president’s power to decide who may enter the country, whereas the visa ban case rested on a different question: whether a visa may be issued at all.
Vargas, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, gave both sides until September 11 to propose how to resolve what remains of the case. The administration can appeal the ruling.
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department and the White House for comment.
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