U.S. Suspends Immigrant Visa Processing for 75 Countries

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced that it was indefinitely freezing immigrant visa processing for nearly 40 percent of the world’s countries, further intensifying its immigration crackdown as U.S. President Donald Trump gears up for his second year back in office. 

Starting Jan. 21, the Trump administration “will pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates,” the State Department wrote in a post on X. “The freeze will remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people.” 

The suspension seems to be limited to immigrant visas, which would put an applicant on a path to eventual citizenship; the move does not appear to apply to individuals seeking short-term visas, such as temporary workers or tourists. 

Trump has repeatedly claimed that immigrants harm the U.S. economy, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. 

“Under President Trump, we will not allow foreign nationals to abuse America’s immigration system and exploit the generosity of the American people,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a post on X.

The 75 impacted countries are: 

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Myanmar, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cuba;

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Macedonia;

Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of Congo, Russia, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

The move marks the latest escalation in Trump’s aggressive immigration clampdown. That effort stretches all the way back to his first term in office, which saw him launch his so-called Muslim ban and family separation policy. 

In Trump 2.0, the administration has gone even further, including by dramatically expanding its full or partial travel ban against dozens of countries in December. The expansion was announced after an Afghan immigrant was arrested and charged in the shooting of two U.S. National Guard troops in Washington. 

When those travel bans are combined with the Trump administration’s latest visa freeze, “the Trump administration has now banned or suspended immigrant visas* for 90 different countries, including 70% of African countries,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said in a post on X. 

The administration’s latest announcement is certain to compound the uncertainty facing immigrant communities in the United States. 

New data published by economists at the Brookings Institution this week showed that the United States lost more immigrants in 2025 than entered the country—the first time this has happened in at least half a century. That drop-off can be largely attributed to the Trump administration’s restrictive measures, the authors said. 

 “The first year of the second Trump administration has seen dramatic changes in immigration policy, resulting in a sharp slowdown in net migration to the United States,” the authors wrote. “We expect the pattern of restrictive policy and increased enforcement to continue or intensify through the coming year.”