A US federal judge on Friday struck down a Trump administration policy that suspended the issuance of immigrant visas to applicants from 75 countries, including Pakistan, ruling that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had exceeded his legal authority.
US District Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan declared the policy, announced by the State Department in January, “patently unlawful”. She said federal immigration law does not give the secretary of state the authority to direct consular officers on the processing of immigrant visas.
“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,” she wrote.
The visa suspension, which came into effect in January, affected applicants from countries across several regions, including Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay in Latin America; Bosnia and Albania in the Balkans; Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia; as well as numerous countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
The State Department had justified the policy by claiming that applicants from the designated countries faced a higher likelihood of becoming dependent on government assistance in the United States.
The department did not immediately comment on the court’s ruling.
Vargas, who was appointed by former Democratic President Joe Biden, issued the decision in response to a lawsuit brought by immigrant rights organisations Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together. The case was also supported by immigrant visa applicants and US citizens sponsoring family members from the affected countries.
The ruling comes amid President Donald Trump’s wider immigration crackdown, which his administration says is intended to strengthen domestic security.
However, rights groups have argued that the crackdown has undermined free speech and due process protections and created an increasingly hostile environment for ethnic minorities, with concerns also raised over racial profiling.
