Biden Judge Blows Up Trump’s 75-Country Visa Freeze
A Biden-appointed federal judge on Friday vacated the Trump administration’s suspension of immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries.
A Biden-appointed federal judge on Friday vacated the Trump administration’s suspension of immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries, using an APA vacatur to do so, sidestepping the Supreme Court’s recent limits on universal injunctions in Trump v. CASA.
Biden appointee U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority when he ordered consular officers to refuse visas based on an applicant’s nationality alone. She called the policy “patently unlawful.”
Rubio’s State Department announced the suspension on January 14, effective January 21. The department said those countries posed a high public-charge risk, citing federal welfare-use data.
It was a big list. Afghanistan, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Thailand, Uganda, Uruguay, and Yemen were among the 75 countries covered. All told, it reached nearly 40 percent of the world’s countries.
The State Department put it plainly:
“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people.”
The January 21 order covered immigrant visas for people trying to move permanently to the United States. It did not cover the tourist and business visas used by most travelers. Interviews for the affected applicants continued, although the State Department had already told its officers how those cases had to end.
Long before Rubio sent the cable, visa officers could turn people away as likely public charges after reviewing their health, age, family, finances, schooling, and work skills.
Someone could clear that review and every other check. It made no difference. If the applicant came from one of Rubio’s list of countries, the cable instructed the officer to apply Section 221(g) and refuse the visa.
Congress did not give Rubio that call, Vargas found. It gave it to the officer who reviewed the application. She also pointed to the law’s prohibition on discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas based on nationality.
“The outcome is predetermined. The visa will be refused.”
The administration argued that the refusals were legal because consular officers entered them under an existing section of immigration law. Vargas called that “an exercise in Orwellian logic.” Section 221(g), she wrote, allows the government to refuse ineligible applicants. It does not give the State Department a blank check to turn away eligible people from countries Rubio placed on a list.
Two left-wing immigration groups filed in Manhattan. Catholic Legal Immigration Network and African Communities Together. The Southern District is a reliable venue for this kind of challenge. They were joined by five immigrant visa applicants and six Americans sponsoring relatives abroad. The policy had already caught applicants from Ghana, Guatemala, Jamaica, and Colombia.
The Justice Department wanted the case tossed before Vargas touched the cable itself. Its lawyers raised standing, the rule against reviewing consular decisions, and whether the cable counted as final agency action. Vargas said she was not reopening one person’s visa case. Rubio had issued an order for the entire department, and that order could be reviewed.
The government kept one claim. Vargas ruled in the administration’s favor on notice-and-comment grounds, finding that Rubio’s cable was an internal directive to State Department employees, not a legislative rule requiring public input. A partial win for Rubio.
Rubio’s order is gone. So are visa refusals that relied on nothing else. Those files are returned to consular officers, and they can still say no on public-charge grounds, criminal history, security concerns, or other grounds already in federal law.
Nobody received a visa from Vargas on Friday. Those applicants simply get another decision without Rubio’s order dictating the answer before the interview is finished.
The parties have until September 11 to tell Vargas what they want to do with the remaining claims in the case. Until then, the visa officers Rubio tried to box in have the final call again. The Second Circuit is next.
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Who do the visa officers report to? Any officers that show a pattern of decisions contrary to America should be counseled and corrected.
Or fired. They can become citizens of the countries they support over American interests
Removed and dissected.
I want to squawk and bluster instinctively but I know nothing about law and particularly nothing in this area. Can anyone give me an educated opinion? It seems to me that the judge is arguing that since authority is delegated, no higher level of government can give orders to consular officials This seems odd to me, but as I say I have zero knowledge in this area.
Thanks
Your reading of that appears to be correct. Of course, it’s pernicious nonsense. All executive authority of the United States is vested in the POTUS. But the POTUS cannot be expected to handle all of the day-to-day operations of government. So the POTUS gives those officials who report directly to him (incl. all cabinet secretaries/agency heads) delegations of authority* to act in his (the POTUS’s) stead. These officials delegate their executive authority further down their own chains of command. The guy who is screening applicants for immigration in a consular office either has such a delegation himself, or is acting under the instruction of a person who does. So, effectively, it’s the POTUS who is screening those applicants. He’s just doing so through a string of person who have been authorized to act in his name. There is no legal distinction between the authority of the POTUS and the authority exercised by those below him in the chain of command. Lesser officers are extensions of the POTUS” presence throughout the structure of the executive offices of the federal government.
*It should be noted that these delegations of authority do not extend the full authority of the POTUS to every level of government, nor even the full authority of the POTUS to every cabinet secretary or agency head. As the delegations go down the chain of command, they become more and more limited, so at the point of contact in a US consulate office, the prospective immigrant is dealing with a person of very limited authority. But such authority as he wields, is, in fact, an authority of the POTUS as granted him in Article I of the Constitution, but only a small and specific fraction of it. And the POTUS can withdraw any such authority from anyone to whom it has been granted, and, if it pleased him, walk into any government office and take over personal responsibility for any job or function in any executive office, because the authority necessary to conduct the work comes from him (and the Constitution) originally, and is only lent to the workers.
Another “side-stepping” jacobin judge. There must be some way for consuls to do some side-stepping of their own. Fight fire with fire, as they say.
The judge is Harvard/Yale and clerked for the wise latina. Enuf written.
Have to import more leeches and parasites to drain what little the average American has left. That’s the D playbook in a nutshell.
This decision is really quite silly and nit picking.
Rubio can not order a decision in specific cases, that is true.
But he can control the processing environment, procedures, legal interpretations and administrative policies under which that officer makes the decision.
Going against that can effect promotion, and working environments, no councilor officer is that stupid.
So in effect this decision means nothing.
So there must be specific criteria that must be met and are examined as part of screening and review for applicants for visa. Can not the Secretary of State, in the process of carrying out his responsibilies, establish policies that the applicant must show a level of financial independence sufficient to dissuade them from becoming a burden on the United States during their visit and influence them to adhere to all other terms of the visa including returning upon its expiration. This might be required in the form of a bond posted in the interest of the United States
Easy. Consular officers ain’t the final say (though it is for judicial review OF the decision with narrow exceptions) in terms of State Dept/Exec Branch b/c their authority isn’t independent it is derived from Exec authority of Sec State and ultimately POTUS. Insert an additional layer of review for visa applications from those 75 Nations deemed at higher risk for any Consular decision favorable to the applicant. Golly gee whiz the review takes a long time but them’s the breaks and the Exec Branch gets to determine him much or how few resources are applied to review process. Then add personal review by Sec State for any favorable actions at that stage. He’s a busy guy according to the memes so don’t hold your breath.
Exactly. Rubio is the uber=consul, i.e. their boss. Require an additional review in DC, and then deny.
Judges keep telling us our country is one huge Suicide Pact. Okay, I’ll take them at their word. Time for Secession and let’s find another way — WITHOUT THE JUDGES.
Biden judge rules that Democrats must be free to destroy America.
Federal courts have no power to review consular decisions to grant or deny visas. This is more of the truly offensive and dangerous judicial resistance. Dangerous in the damage it does to our constitutional order and the rule of law. This will be overturned eventually and even the creep hack judge knows this. The point isn’t to have a proper resolution of the merits, it’s just to delay and stall until the next open borders radical democratic socialist can gain executive power. And this judicial hack also knows the dysfunctional congress will never mete out the proper punishment of impeachment.
Ok. Stop all VISAs regardless of country. Problem solved.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas has upserp the Secretary of State.
Send her to Iran for negotiations please.
Stop all credit cards?!
(I’ve noticed that you seem to consistently capitalize “visa”. Why?)
It’s the insanity of federal immigration law that’s the problem. Here is a simple analogy:
Police Chief Trump has the authority to close a bridge during an emergency. I have and EZpass and nowhere in the contract does it say that Chief Trump specifically can shut down the bridge so I sue the Chief for the extra cost it takes me for the alternate route. The Supreme court said Chief Trump does indeed have the power to shut the bridge BUT must come to court and justify it in front of a federal judge.
PT Trump tells Officer Rubio we can’t have the hassle of being sued by thousands of motorists so go ahead and put up one-way signs on each end of the bridge so I don’t have to make a formal declaration of emergency.
A federal judge says only the Congress can place those one-way signs, not Officer Rubio. Police Chief Trump must issue a formal emergency proclamation and the court doesn’t care about the massive legal headaches that follow from self-serving EZpass drivers and their advocates.
We’ve got to figure out a way to force judges to live with the consequences of their decisions; because right now, they’re in a very elite club and they live in beautiful neighborhoods with walls, gates, and private security…just like the rest of the American political class; insulted from the ever-increasing depravity and lawlessness they always support.
Ignore the bitch, she doesn’t have the authority.
If the Rs can maintain control of Congress in the midterms, this is what Trump should do during remainder of his term.
U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas is “an exercise in Orwellian logic.” Another mentally ill Biden Democrat throwing her weight around.
Brandon, the illegitimate turd that keeps drawing flies.
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