Lawsuit filed against Trump Administration for 75-country immigrant visa ban

On February 2, 2026, several US citizens and immigration and legal organizations sued the Trump Administration for its January 14, 2026, immigrant visa (green card) approval ban for consular posts in 75 countries. See our previous post about the ban here, which is based on a public charge argument that individuals from these 75 countries are more likely to become dependent on public benefits like Medicaid and SNAP. The lawsuit, CLINIC v. Rubio, asserts that the ban’s public charge basis is “‘unsupported and demonstrably false,’”* as most of the affected would-be new green card holders will not become eligible for public benefits for years. *CLINIC v. Rubio (via The New York Times). The lawsuit instead asserts that the public charge rationale is a stand-in for previous race-based immigrant visa quotas that were abolished during the Civil Rights Movement. 

Read an overview of CLINIC v. Rubio from the National Immigration Law Center (with a link to the lawsuit complaint) here and a summary from the New York Times here.