US Judge Rules Against Trump’s Visa Ban On Nigeria, 74 Others

Relief may have come the way of Nigeria and 74 other countries over the controversial raft of immigration visa restrictions imposed on them by the US President Donald Trump administration.

A US judge on Friday ruled against the administration’s policy suspending the issuance of immigrant visas, stressing that the policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority.

US District Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan described  the policy, announced by the State Department in January, as “patently unlawful” and ran afoul of federal immigration law, which explicitly stripped the secretary of state of authority over consular officers’ 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, Reuters reported Saturday.

Vargas, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, issued tbn he ruling following a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together, along with immigrant-visa applicants and U.S. citizens sponsoring family members from the designated countries.

The State Department’s suspension, which also took effect in January, affected applicants from Nigeria and other African countries and  Latin American countries including Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay; Balkan nations such as Bosnia and Albania; South Asian countries including Pakistan and Bangladesh; and many nations across Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

The State Department said applicants from the affected countries were “at a ‌high ⁠risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state and federal government resources in the United States.”

President Donald Trump has pursued an aggressive immigration crackdown that he says is aimed at improving domestic security.

The 75 countries listed in the ban in alphabetical order, include  Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

The Trump administration claimed that people from these countries are more likely than others to “extract wealth” or “take welfare and public benefits” from the United States.  However, the decision smacks of discrimination as every single one of the 75 countries listed are in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, countries with populations that are mostly non white or that include significant ethnic minorities.