Federal Court Strikes Down the State Department's 75-Country Immigrant Visa Suspension: What It Means for EB Green Card Applicants

On August 21, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas of the Southern District of New York vacated a State Department policy that had suspended immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries since January 2026. The ruling, in Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio, holds that Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his statutory authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act's nondiscrimination provisions when he directed consular officers to stop issuing immigrant visas to applicants from a 75-country list based on a blanket, nationality-wide public-charge rationale. This is a State Department action, reviewed by a federal district court — it is separate from, and uses different legal authority than, DHS/USCIS's recent public charge policy alert for I-485 adjustment-of-status filers (see our earlier article), even though both trace back to the same underlying public-charge policy push.

What we know from the ruling

• Case: Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio, No. 1:26-cv-00858 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• Judge: Jeannette A. Vargas
• Decided: August 21, 2026
• Plaintiffs: Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), African Communities Together, six U.S. citizens with pending family-based petitions, and five intending immigrants with pending employment-based petitions
• Defendant policy: a State Department directive, issued around January 14, 2026, suspending immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 listed countries on public-assistance/public-charge grounds
• Holding: the policy is "contrary to law and in excess of statutory authority," violates the APA, and violates the INA's prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in immigrant visa issuance
• Remedy: the policy is vacated, and every immigrant visa refusal based solely on the policy is set aside, with the government directed to reconsider those cases
• Status: the ruling is final as issued; the government has not yet indicated whether it will appeal to the Second Circuit

The Secretary's indiscriminate freeze on immigrant visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries is patently unlawful.Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio, S.D.N.Y. (Aug. 21, 2026), as reported by Fox News and NPR

What the suspended policy actually did

Beginning around January 14, 2026, the State Department instructed consular officers worldwide to pause processing and issuance of immigrant visas — the category used for green card cases handled through a U.S. consulate abroad, as opposed to Form I-485 adjustment of status filed from inside the United States — for citizens of 75 named countries. The stated rationale was that nationals of these countries were, as a group, more likely to require public assistance in the United States. The list spanned a wide range of countries across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Balkans, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, Iran, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Somalia, among many others. Neither India nor China — the two largest source countries for H-1B and OPT-to-green-card cases — was on the list.

Why the court struck it down

Judge Vargas's opinion rests on two independent grounds. First, procedurally, the policy was adopted without the notice-and-comment process the APA requires for this kind of binding rule, and the agency did not adequately justify treating an applicant's nationality alone as proof of individual public-charge risk. Second, and more fundamentally, the INA specifically bars discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas on the basis of nationality, place of birth, or place of residence. The government had argued the suspension was analogous to the president's recognized authority to bar entire classes of people from entering the country; the court rejected that comparison, holding that whether a visa may be issued at all is a different legal question from whether an already-issued visa holder may be admitted at the border.

What changes now — and what does not

• Consular officers can no longer deny an immigrant visa solely because the applicant is a national of one of the 75 listed countries — that categorical basis for refusal has been vacated.
• Anyone whose immigrant visa was refused on or after January 2026 based solely on this policy is entitled to have that refusal set aside and the case reconsidered on its individual merits.
• The ruling does not guarantee any particular visa will now be approved — individualized public-charge review, and every other ground of inadmissibility, still applies exactly as it did before the suspension existed.
• The ruling does not touch nonimmigrant visas (H-1B, F-1, L-1, and similar categories), Form I-485 adjustment-of-status filings from inside the United States, or the separate DHS public charge rule for adjustment applicants covered in our earlier article — it reaches immigrant visa issuance through U.S. consulates specifically.
• The government has not announced whether it will appeal to the Second Circuit; until and unless a higher court stays or reverses the ruling, the vacatur stands.

Why this matters for the OPT-to-green-card and H-1B community

Most H-1B workers and OPT/STEM OPT holders working toward an EB-2 or EB-3 green card file Form I-485 to adjust status from inside the United States, which this ruling does not touch. But a meaningful subset of employment-based green card cases — including immediate relatives being sponsored abroad, and workers whose priority dates or personal circumstances mean they consular-process rather than adjust status domestically — go through the immigrant visa route at a U.S. embassy or consulate instead. The five employment-based intending-immigrant plaintiffs in this case are exactly that group. For applicants and family members who are nationals of any of the 75 formerly listed countries, particularly workers and green card sponsors from Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana, or other listed countries, this ruling reopens a path that had been categorically closed for roughly seven months.

What to do if you were affected

• If your immigrant visa application was refused since January 2026 and the refusal cited this public-charge-based nationality suspension, ask your attorney to confirm whether the refusal was based solely on this policy — those cases are the ones directly entitled to reconsideration.
• If your case has been pending without a final decision at a consulate covering one of the 75 listed countries, watch for the consulate to resume normal processing and scheduling.
• Do not assume approval is now automatic — every other requirement, including an individualized public-charge assessment and all standard grounds of inadmissibility, still applies to your case.
• Because the government has not said whether it will appeal, build in the possibility that this ruling could be stayed or narrowed on appeal when planning travel or other time-sensitive steps.

Bottom line

As of August 21, 2026, the State Department no longer has a categorical, nationality-based basis to freeze immigrant visa issuance for the 75 countries it had listed since January. If you or a family member is a national of one of those countries with a pending or previously refused employment- or family-based immigrant visa case, this ruling is the reason to check back in with your consulate or attorney now. It does not change anything about H-1B, OPT, STEM OPT, or domestic I-485 adjustment of status — those remain governed by the rules covered in our other articles.