In an official announcement on its website, the State Department (DOS) has indicated that it will “pause” immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 “high risk” countries. These countries are Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, 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 pause on immigrant visa processing will be effective on January 21 of this year.
The justification for this pause is that nationals of these countries “take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates.” The legal basis for the pause is therefore a perceived likelihood that nationals of these countries emigrating the United States will become public charges. A public charge is someone who is likely at any time to become primarily dependent on government assistance such as welfare payments for subsistence.
The pause will affect only immigrant visa applications filed at United States consulates overseas, and will not apply to adjustment of status applications filed with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) by nationals of these countries who are already in the United States. It should be noted, however, that applications for immigration benefits filed by nationals of 39 countries, some of which appear in the list of 75 countries, are already subject to an adjudicative hold per a January 1, 2026, USCIS memo. The 39 countries are Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, The Gambia, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The immigrant visa pause will also not affect the processing of nonimmigrant visas by consulates of nationals of these countries, unless the applicant’s country of citizenship is one of the 39 countries listed above, which are already subject to a full or partial travel ban per presidential proclamations of June and December of last year.
DOS notes that immigrant visa applicants who are nationals of affected countries may submit visa applications and attend interviews, and consulates will continue to schedule applicants for appointments, but no immigrant visas will be issued during the pause. Dual nationals applying with a valid passport of a country that is not listed above are exempt from this pause. The announcement also states that no previously granted immigrant visas will be revoked as a result of the pause.
