CLINIC v. Rubio

Case Status Update

In a major victory for families, fairness, and the rule of law, a federal court in New York struck down the Trump administration’s blanket, nationality-based “public charge” ban on immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries. The court held that the ban exceeds the Secretary of State’s statutory and regulatory authority and violates Section 1152(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965’s prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in issuing a visa. In its decision, the court also vacated and set aside any visa denial based solely on the ban and ordered the State Department to restore lawful, case-by-case evaluation of visa applications.

Case Overview

This lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries, which constitutes an unlawful nationality-based ban on legal immigration and a new set of discriminatory, unlawful public charge rules that strips families and working people of the process guaranteed by law.

On February 2, 2026, the National Immigration Law Center, Democracy Forward, The Legal Aid Society-New York, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Colombo & Hurd filed the complaint against the U.S. Department of State (“DOS”) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs include Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), African Communities Together (ACT), along with several individuals harmed by the Ban and related DOS Cables, including working professionals from Colombia seeking employment-based visas in the U.S. and U.S. citizens who were in the process of securing a visa for their loved ones in Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica and Guatemala and now are indefinitely separated from their families by the ban.

The Trump administration has baselessly cited “public charge” risk as its stated justification for the ban, issuing directives via internal Department of State (“DOS”) Cables to rewrite both the laws and rules governing immigrant visa processing as well as the definition and application of “public charge,” after relentlessly and cruelly smearing immigrant communities, particularly communities of color. However, as the suit asserts, this is a false narrative. The overwhelming majority of applicants for immigrant visas are not eligible for cash welfare and remain ineligible for years. For the emergency services and public programs they may ultimately be eligible for, Congress has decided to make these benefits available, and receiving them does not determine whether someone is likely to become a public charge. Immigrants pay state, local, and federal taxes that help fund the services used by all U.S. residents, including U.S. citizens, and contribute to overall economic growth in the United States.

The lawsuit argues that the ban, which was adopted without notice-and-comment rulemaking, violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act itself, the constitutional separation of powers, and the Fifth Amendment due to its discriminatory intent.