A United States federal judge has struck down a Trump administration policy that suspended the issuance of immigrant visas to citizens of Nigeria and 74 other countries.
The ruling was delivered on Friday by Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York, who held that the policy exceeded the powers legally granted to the US Secretary of State.
The visa restriction, which took effect in January 2026, affected applicants from countries across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, the Caribbean and parts of Europe.
In her decision, Vargas ruled that US immigration law does not give the Secretary of State the authority to impose a blanket prohibition on immigrant visas based solely on an applicant’s nationality.
“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,” Vargas wrote.
The judge further described the policy as “patently unlawful.”
The US State Department had defended the suspension by arguing that applicants from the affected countries were considered to have a high likelihood of becoming financially dependent on government resources.
However, immigrant rights groups challenged the measure in court. The lawsuit was filed by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together, alongside individual visa applicants and US citizens seeking to bring family members from the affected countries into the United States.
Vargas ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, finding that the Secretary of State lacked the statutory authority to introduce such a sweeping restriction.
Nigeria was among the African countries affected by the policy, alongside several nations in other regions, including Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bosnia, Albania, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The court decision came amid a series of immigration restrictions introduced by the Trump administration. The visa suspension was reportedly separate from a broader travel restriction affecting dozens of countries, as well as a pause in diversity visa issuance introduced in late December.
