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Immigrant rights organizationsLegal rights groups and several U.S. citizens filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the Trump administration’s ban on immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries.
The group claims the policy illegally rewrites U.S. immigration law and discriminates on the basis of nationality and race and “eviscerated decades of well-established immigration law.”
THE trialseen by Fox News Digital, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of new York and names Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. State Department as defendants.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to explain President Donald Trump’s policy toward Venezuela following the U.S. military raid that toppled then-President Nicolas Maduro, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
The lawsuit hopes to block a The State Department’s policy that took effect on January 21 and indefinitely suspends the issuance of immigrant visas, but not non-immigrant visas, including tourist visas, for applicants from listed countries.
As Fox News Digital previously reported, the pause is an effort to crack down on candidates deemed likely to become a public charge, departments reassess selection and control procedures.
The group says the new policy amounts to a “categorical ban on legal immigration“, replacing the individualized case-by-case arbitration required by federal law.
The State Department justified the pause by saying that applicants from affected countries are at increased risk of becoming “public charges” or relying on government assistance.
The lawsuit says the State Department’s policy is “based on an unsupported and demonstrably false assertion that nationals of affected countries migrate to the United States to inappropriately rely on cash welfare and are at risk of becoming ‘public charges’.”
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President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, Friday, September 19, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
According to the complaint, the ban affects approximately 40 to 45 percent of immigrant visa applicants worldwide and applies even to people whose visas have already been approved or authorized for printing.
The policy does not have a stated end date, review criteria, or exemption mechanism.
The lawsuit was filed by the National Immigration Law Center along with Democracy Forward, the Legal Aid Society, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Colombo & Hurd, among others.
The plaintiffs include nonprofit organizations, U.S. citizens soliciting family members, and employment-related visa applicants.
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Marco Rubio with passports in view; The Department of State has implemented updated screening procedures for visa applicants. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/istock) (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/istock)
One of the U.S. citizens who filed a petition is a grandmother from New York whose petitions for her four adult children and three grandchildren from Ghana were approved, but the family was turned away from consular interviews because of the ban.
Another plaintiff is a U.S. citizen from Long Island whose wife and infant traveled to Guatemala for a scheduled interview and are now stranded there indefinitely.
The break concerns the candidates of Latin Americaincluding Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay; Balkan countries like Bosnia and Albania; South Asian countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh; and many countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
The petitioners also dispute a related issue State Department directive that expands the definition of “public charge” must include non-monetary benefits, private charitable use, and speculative future factors such as health and English proficiency.
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President Donald Trump, right, speaks with Vice President JD Vance, left. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
They argue that this expansion contradicts decades of immigration laws and Congressional intentions.
The petitioners ask the court to declare these policies illegal, block their nationwide implementation, and restore legal, individualized visa processing.
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In a press release, Democracy forward said: “Once again, the Trump-Vance administration is engaging in a sweeping and discriminatory policy, hidden under the guise of a bureaucratic process. »
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said that “by freezing immigrant visas for people from 75 countries, this administration is tearing families apart, excluding the workers our economy depends on, and reviving a discredited lie of ‘public charge’ to justify collective punishment based on nationality and race.”
“The law does not allow the government to blacklist entire nations or use immigration policy as a weapon to promote racial discrimination. We are in court because no administration has the power to rewrite the Constitution or immigration law at will, and we will use every legal tool available to end this abuse of power,” Perryman added.
“A visa is a privilege, not a right. By law, Secretary Rubio has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient,” senior deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement Monday.
“Such a requirement prevents billions in waste, fraud and abuse and protects public benefits for Americans. The Department is suspending issuance to evaluate and improve monitoring and verification procedures – but we will never stop fighting for American citizens first,” Pigott added.
