The US State Department said the freeze would affect citizens of Somalia, Haiti, Iran and Eritrea, among other countries.
Published on January 14, 2026
The United States says it will suspend immigrant visa processing for 75 countries around the world as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to expand. Action on immigration.
The State Department said Wednesday that visa processing would be suspended for “countries whose immigrants receive welfare from Americans at an unacceptable rate.”
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“The freeze will remain in effect until the United States ensures that new immigrants do not siphon off wealth from Americans,” he said, adding that the measure would affect “dozens of countries,” including Somalia, Haiti, Iran and Eritrea.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has pursued a hardline, anti-immigration agenda, promising the largest deportation crackdown in US history.
Over the past year, he has announced curbs on several US visa programs and drastically reduced the number planned. Refugee admissions in the US.
His administration has deployed heavily armed immigration officers to major US cities to detain and deport people accused of being in the country illegally.
The State Department said earlier this week that it had withdrawn Over 100,000 visas Since Trump returned to the White House, a one-year record.
The Department of Homeland Security said last month that the Trump administration has deported more than 605,000 people, while 2.5 million others have left the US on their own.
The State Department did not immediately release a full list of countries with freezes on immigrant visas on Wednesday.
The AFP news agency quoted an unnamed US official as saying that Brazil, Egypt, Thailand, Nigeria, Iraq and Yemen would be among those affected.
Meanwhile, a State Department spokesperson said the freeze on immigrant visa processing will begin on January 21.
The move will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant, or temporary tourist or business, visas.
David Beer, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, said the Trump administration “has proven to be the most legitimate immigration agenda in American history”.
“This action would ban nearly half of all legal immigrants in the United States and remove nearly 315,000 legal immigrants over the next year,” Beer said in a statement.
Aaron Rechlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Wednesday, A US travel ban had been announced earlierThat means the Trump administration has “now banned or suspended immigrant visas for 90 different countries”.
Seventy percent of the targeted countries were in Africa, Reichlin-Melnick added.