Overview
- Cato links the allegation to an expanded travel ban covering 40 countries, a freeze and retroactive reviews of immigration benefits, and a State Department pause on visa processing for 75 countries, alongside a broader freeze affecting applicants from 92 nations.
- The analysis estimates the combined measures imperil roughly 2 million applications and involve more than $1 billion in fees paid by applicants and U.S. sponsors for benefits not being adjudicated.
- Author David J. Bier writes that agencies are declining to process many cases and alleges consular officers have been instructed not to inform future applicants that they are banned.
- The State Department policy announced in January cited alleged excessive welfare use and followed viral claims about Somali immigrants in Minnesota defrauding benefit programs.
- A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups and U.S. citizen plaintiffs sued last month to challenge the State Department pause, arguing the policy is baseless and discriminatory and has separated mixed-status families.