Lawsuit Challenges State Department’s 75‑Country Immigrant Visa Freeze

A coalition of immigrant families, workers, and legal advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan on Thursday morning challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries, marking the first major court test of the State Department’s controversial “public charge”–based visa freeze.

The case, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) v. U.S. Department of State, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and assigned to Judge Arthur F. Engoron under civil case number 1:26-cv-00858. Brought under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act, the complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to block what plaintiffs describe as an unlawful, nationality-based ban on legal immigration affecting tens of thousands of family- and employment-based immigrant visa applicants worldwide.

The plaintiffs are represented by the National Immigration Law Center, Democracy Forward, The Legal Aid Society, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Colombo & Hurd. The legal teams jointly argue that the State Department has “attempted to rewrite Congress’s carefully crafted provisions” governing who may be deemed a public charge.

On January 14, 2026, the State Department announced it would pause all immigrant visa issuances for applicants from 75 countries identified as “at high risk of public benefits usage,” with the suspension taking effect January 21. The pause applies to immigrant visas processed at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, including visas for spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, as well as many employment-based immigrants. Nonimmigrant visas—such as tourist, student, or temporary work visas—are not covered.

Internal cables cited in the complaint instruct consular officers to refuse immigrant visas for affected nationals under Section 221(g) of the INA solely on the basis of nationality, even where applicants have otherwise qualified and, in some cases, already cleared final approval stages. Plaintiffs say the policy functions as a blanket visa ban that is indefinite, lacks clear criteria or an end date, and directly contravenes the INA’s prohibition on discrimination in immigrant visa issuance based on nationality, race, place of birth, or place of residence.

The lawsuit details the experiences of individual plaintiffs whose lives have been upended by the suspension, including multiple New York–area families. One plaintiff, a U.S. citizen mother and grandmother living in New York City, petitioned for her four adult children and three grandchildren from Ghana. All four children attended consular interviews on January 22 and were issued refusals stating their visas could not be approved because Ghana is now among the 75 countries subject to the ban—despite previously approved petitions and paid fees.

Another plaintiff is a U.S. citizen father from Long Island whose wife, a Guatemalan national, traveled to Guatemala with their nursing infant for a scheduled immigrant visa interview. Although her case had been approved, she and the baby are now stranded there and indefinitely separated from him because consular officers have been instructed not to issue visas to covered nationals while the pause remains in effect. A third individual plaintiff, a Colombian physician and endocrinologist with an approved EB-1A employment-based immigrant visa petition, is unable to obtain his visa because Colombia is on the suspension list, leaving both his career and his U.S. employer in limbo.

Plaintiffs allege that many others face similar hardships, including mixed-status families split across borders, U.S. citizen petitioners who have invested years and significant resources to complete the legal immigration process, and employers unable to bring in needed workers who have already cleared extensive vetting.

The complaint challenges not only the January 14 “Blanket Visa Ban” but also a November 6, 2025 consular “public charge” cable that plaintiffs say radically expands how officers assess whether an applicant is likely to become a public charge. According to the lawsuit, the cable directs officers to treat virtually any public assistance, social welfare program, or even private charity—anywhere in the world—as a negative factor, despite more than a century of precedent limiting public-charge determinations to primary dependence on cash assistance or long-term institutional care at government expense.

Together, these directives—referred to in the complaint as the “Consular Rules”—are alleged to violate the INA’s individualized “totality of the circumstances” test for public-charge determinations under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4); conflict with the statute’s prohibition on discrimination in immigrant visa issuance under 8 U.S.C. § 1152(a)(1)(A); exceed the State Department’s authority by transforming Section 221(g) into a categorical, nationality-based suspension tool; bypass required notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act; operate as binding rules adopted without public input; and violate the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, given their disparate impact on non-white immigrants and the administration’s rhetoric regarding “welfare” and “extracting wealth” from the United States.

The lawsuit also situates the policy within a broader history of public-charge litigation, pointing to federal court decisions that struck down or enjoined the Trump administration’s 2019 public-charge rule as inconsistent with the INA and arbitrary and capricious, as well as Congress’s repeated decisions to expand access to non-cash benefits for lawfully present immigrants.

Organizational plaintiffs CLINIC and African Communities Together (ACT) say the new rules have already forced them to divert substantial resources from ongoing work to crisis counseling and emergency training for clients and affiliates suddenly blocked by the visa freeze. CLINIC, which coordinates a nationwide network of more than 400 Catholic and community-based immigration programs, warns that the ban threatens its mission by making consular processing more complex, uncertain, and costly.

“This administration is trying to shut down lawful immigration from nearly half the countries in the world without legal authority or justification,” said CLINIC Executive Director Anna Gallagher, calling the policy an effort to “scapegoat immigrants and disregard both the will of Congress and the inherent human dignity of those seeking safety, family unity, and opportunity.”

Diana Konaté of African Communities Together said the 75-country visa ban “is yet another unlawful and racist policy” that “makes an already broken system even more harmful by cruelly denying families the chance to reunite,” particularly for Africans who already face entrenched discrimination in visa processing.

Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said the Trump-Vance administration is “reviving a discredited ‘public charge’ lie to justify collective punishment based on nationality and race,” stressing that “the law does not allow the government to blacklist entire nations or weaponize immigration policy to advance racial discrimination.” Joanna Cuevas Ingram of the National Immigration Law Center called the ban “unprecedented and illegal,” saying it “slams the door on people who have done everything the United States has asked of them” and “strips families and working people of rights that the law clearly protects.”

Other advocates highlighted the broader implications of the policy. Western Center on Law & Poverty Executive Director Cori Racela said the visa ban “weaponizes public-benefits law” and distorts the public-charge statute into a tool for excluding entire countries, while Legal Aid Society attorney Hasan Shafiqullah warned that the State Department “cannot rewrite immigration law to advance a discriminatory agenda.” Colombo & Hurd partner Sarah Wilson emphasized that timing is critical for employment-based immigrants, arguing the ban “freezes lawful immigration pathways midstream” and will cause long-term harm to workers, employers, and the broader U.S. economy.

Baher Azmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights was more blunt, stating that the administration is “again revealing the racism underlying its immigration policy, cloaked this time in pretextual claims about non-white families and public benefits,” and stressing that “Congress and the Constitution prohibit white supremacy as a basis for immigration policy.”

While the New York lawsuit seeks nationwide relief, a separate non-class group lawsuit is being organized in Washington, D.C., by Red Eagle Law, L.C., on behalf of immigrant visa applicants directly affected by the same 75-country suspension. The firm says at least 47 families—comprising 105 individuals from 12 countries—have already joined as plaintiffs, with onboarding open through February 6 and filing anticipated between February 10 and 20 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Red Eagle Law’s case will specifically challenge the State Department’s January 14 directive instructing consular posts to halt immigrant visa issuance for listed nationalities, even in long-pending family and employment cases. The firm noted that its lawsuit will not address a separate 39-country travel ban.

Curtis Morrison, an attorney with Red Eagle Law, framed the suspension as a continuation of the administration’s earlier efforts to justify cuts to legal immigration through economic rhetoric. “In 2020, they argued immigrants were stealing jobs. Now they argue immigrants don’t work. Which is it?” he said, accusing the administration of shifting narratives to pursue the same exclusionary objective.

The New York lawsuit asks the court to vacate the consular public-charge cable, the 75-country blanket visa ban, and all related actions; declare them unlawful and beyond the State Department’s authority; and bar enforcement of policies that continue to separate families and block otherwise eligible immigrants. Plaintiffs cite a recent ruling in Sangster v. Rubio from a federal court in Nevada, where a judge issued a temporary restraining order directing the State Department to process visas for a Congolese family affected by the same freeze, finding the policy likely arbitrary and beyond the agency’s authority.

Members of Congress have also raised concerns. In a January 27 letter attached to the complaint, 75 lawmakers described the policy as “stunning,” warning that a “drastic change impacting hundreds of thousands of people annually” was rolled out via social media with “no meaningful information” and would have a “devastating impact” on constituents.