A US federal court has invalidated the suspension of immigrant visas for 75 countries imposed at the beginning of the year by the administration of President Donald Trump, determining that Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his legal powers with the measure.
Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York ruled in a 61-page ruling that the ban is “manifestly illegal” and questioned the Administration’s justification that applicants from the aforementioned nations presented a high risk of becoming an “economic burden” to the United States.
The judge noted that U.S. officials had been ordered to deny visas even to immigrants who met the requirements and were likely to be self-sufficient, in violation of a rule that requires individualized evaluations of each case.
When consulted by EFE, a spokesperson for the State Department indicated that they do not usually comment on pending or ongoing legal disputes. However, the official insisted that “the Trump Administration protects the American people by maintaining the most rigorous standards of evaluation and verification of visa applicants.”
The list of those affected by this directive included several Latin American and Caribbean nations such as Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua and Uruguay.
The pause in the issuance of visas, applied since last January, also covered Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Nigeria, Russia, Somalia, Thailand and Yemen.
The plaintiffs in the case include five professionals from Colombia who received denials of their visa applications citing the new policy, as well as six Americans who say the ban harmed their family members in Ghana, Jamaica, Guatemala and Ethiopia, according to The New York Times.
The judge’s ruling also overturns visa denials based solely on the measure, which could result in the review of thousands of applications already processed.
“This decision represents a significant victory for the hundreds of thousands of families across the country and the world whose lives were thrown into chaos due to this Administration’s illegal and discriminatory visa ban,” Joanna Cuevas Ingram, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement.
According to Cuevas Ingram, the court “made it clear that immigration laws cannot be used to justify discrimination.”
The president and executive director of the NGO Democracy Forward, Skye Perryman, insisted that the ruling represents a “strong rejection of an illegal and discriminatory policy that caused enormous harm to families and communities across the country.”
“The Trump-Vance Administration cannot exploit immigration law to ban entire countries, separate families and deny rights guaranteed by the Constitution without being held accountable,” he insisted.
