Trump administration's visa freeze upends work and life for many U.S. families

Geoff Bennett:

This week, the Trump administration was sued for a sweeping pause of immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries. The freeze, which started last month, was aimed at nations the administration said -- quote -- "whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates."

This comes on top of full or partial travel and visa restrictions on citizens from 39 countries, which federal officials say are necessary to prevent overstays and protect national security.

Liz Landers has more on the impact.

Liz Landers:

The travel bans and visa suspensions have upended routine work, marriage, and family visa processes, leaving many U.S. citizens across the country in limbo.

Over the last few weeks, we have spoken with some of them, including one man who asked us not to use his name because he worries it might affect his Brazilian husband's visa application.

Samantha Cuffy, Second-Generation Immigrant:

Hi, my name is Samantha Cuffy.

David Zwisohn, Former Client of Caretaker From Sierra Leone: I'm David Zwisohn.

Chris Joondeph, U.S. Spouse of Nigerian Citizen: My name is Chris Joondeph.

Ashleigh Ramos, U.S. Spouse of Moroccan Citizen: My name is Ashley Ramos.

I recently remarried three years ago to my husband, who is from Morocco. I am a mom of five and I'm a public schoolteacher that teaches Spanish.

Samantha Cuffy:

My entire family actually are originally from the island of Dominica and migrated here in the late '80s, early '90s, and I was born shortly after. And I have enjoyed the fruits of their labor and their working hard and going through the citizenship process and doing everything they can to be able to achieve their own version of the American dream.

Chris Joondeph:

My wife and I met on my first trip out to Nigeria in 2021. I'm a travel content creator, and I had been trying to visit every country in the world, but we had stayed in touch. As our relationship developed, we eventually decided to get married in May 2024, and we immediately filed our petition. And we're currently waiting on our visa for her to come join me in the United States.

Ashleigh Ramos:

I met my husband through a language exchange app. He was learning English. I was trying to learn Moroccan Arabic specifically. He just became part of my everyday life, my kids as well through our video chats and lessons.

I have been to see him now four times. I'm going again in about two weeks. He's the most emotionally supportive partner you could ever ask for. And we have been waiting a long time. And we thought we were almost done.

David Zwisohn:

I'm totally responsible for caring for our 25-year-old special needs daughter. My daughter is completely dependent, and she will be her entire life. And we have a 27-year-old son who's slightly on the autistic spectrum.

We had gotten the services of what they call a direct support care provider, and her name was Jennifer (ph). And she had worked with us from mid-June, I think, mid-June 2025 up until last Friday. And she is from the country of Sierra Leone. And Sierra Leone is on the Trump administration's banned list.

Man:

I'm a U.S.-born citizen. My husband is a Brazilian citizen. We met at a bar. And it was as cheesy as a pickup line and talking. When we decided to get married, we wanted to make sure we did everything legal. We wanted to make sure we did everything right.

Ashleigh Ramos:

I think the average American really doesn't know what this process is. And this right here, this is what I have given in support of our case. This is to show the relationship, but also to prove my financial standing, his ability and potential to have gainful employment when he comes. It's very expensive.

Chris Joondeph:

We had kind of expected it to take about two years and possibly be getting that visa in May of this coming year. But now that looks like it's sort of on indefinite delay.

Our visa won't get denied, but it's just going to be put on hold. It's not going to be processed. And so we're just kind of sitting here without any idea kind of where that ends.

Samantha Cuffy:

When I saw Dominica on that list, it was honestly a shock. Folks are really terrified, because they're, like, I don't know when next I'm going to be able to see my family. I don't know if I'm going to be able to move freely even within this country, like, people who are citizens feel like just because the fact that they have an accent or that they look a little bit different.

Ashleigh Ramos:

This really felt like the door slamming shut and it was just immediate panic.

Man:

What do we do? Where do we go? There's no -- there's no instruction. There's no information. There's just a blanket thing saying there's going to be a pause.

David Zwisohn:

Finding a replacement for Jennifer is much harder than most people would realize. The load on me is tremendous. It's a struggle to be able to get enough sleep, a struggle to continue eating well, and that's critical. It's not just my daughter and my son. I have to take care of myself in order to take care of them.

Chris Joondeph:

You feel like it's this punitive policy that doesn't really go about doing what it says.

If you need to vet people more, then vet people more. But to just say, no, we won't even take a look is a real gut punch. And it feels like you're let down.

Ashleigh Ramos:

I think, when people see the pause, they assume this is protecting us in some way from foreign invaders or stopping illegal immigration. And that's not the case. This is preventing families from being together.

Man:

My plan was to bring my family to the United States and to build. Now the only option seems to be leave. That is the worst feeling. And you should never feel punished for loving someone.

Liz Landers:

For more on these restrictions, we are joined by David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute.

David, nice to have you back on "News Hour."

David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies, Cato Institute: Thanks for having me on.

Liz Landers:

Let's start with what that report showed.

It's -- obviously, this is impacting a wide range of Americans. Who is this affecting right now and has the United States seen policies like this before?

David Bier:

Well, we absolutely have seen policies like this before during the first Trump administration, when he basically shut down almost all visa processing in 2020. That was -- created a huge backlog of people who had to be processed under the Biden administration for -- put people in very similar situations.

I encountered people who had to actually move out of the United States to be with their loved one in another country. And we're seeing similar decisions being forced upon people today. If you look at the totality of it, about half of all legal immigration, permanent immigration from abroad, has now been banned by these policies, so one out of every two immigrants.

If you look at African immigrants in particular, legal immigrants, again, it's almost 70 percent of legal immigrants from -- you're looking at the statistics from 2024 -- have now been banned by this administration. Over 100,000 of the 300,000 or so who are now affected by this policy on an annual basis are the spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens, so very close relations.

We haven't seen anything -- outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, we haven't seen anything as severe as this restriction.

Liz Landers:

The State Department has cited concerns that some of the immigrants were at high risk of becoming a drain on the welfare system. How vetted are these immigrants? And is there evidence that that is actually a problem?

David Bier:

No, absolutely not. You have to have a financial sponsor in the United States who is willing to take ownership of you. You are also banned from accessing any means-tested benefits for the first five years that you are in the United States.

And so there's both the restriction on accessing the benefits and you also have someone who's there who has to prove their ability to financially support you. And if you look at the immigration system as a whole, we've now banned half of the legal immigrants to the United States.

We have estimated that the immigrant population over the last 30 years has reduced the deficits by $14.5 trillion over that 30-year period. So immigrants, legal immigrants who are coming here, coming to work, coming to support themselves are a benefit to the United States, reduce deficits, and ultimately support the American system of government.

Liz Landers:

The visa pause affecting nationals of these 75 countries is currently being challenged in court. What do you make of the legality of the government's blanket pause here?

David Bier:

Well, if you look at the Immigration and Nationality Act, one of the fundamental questions that Congress was trying to resolve for almost four decades from the 1920s to the 1960s was whether we were going to discriminate based on nationality.

They put a provision in that law that says you cannot discriminate against visa applicants based on their nationality. The administration is openly flouting that restriction and basically daring the Supreme Court to strike it down and say that this is illegal.

They have already sort of gotten the Supreme Court's OK on part of the ban for 40 countries because the president signed an executive action proclamation saying he is ordering them being suspended. But 75 of the over 90 countries affected by this, it's just effectively the secretary of state's tweets who are banning these people.

This is not some formal policy from the president of the United States. So I think the litigants here will have a stronger case because it's really not a formal policy adopted in any kind of formal manner.

Liz Landers:

You recently wrote for Cato -- quote -- "that President Trump is leading the most anti-legal immigrant administration in American history."

What does that mean? How so?

David Bier:

Well, not only are we banning about half of the immigrant visa applicants under this policy. We have also effectively shut down the refugee program for about 125,000 individuals who would have otherwise been able to immigrate legally as refugees from abroad.

He's also shut down the Diversity Visa lottery which is basically the only way that many people without family connections can immigrate legally to the United States. He has, in addition to those actions, shut down the legal ways for people to apply for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and enter the country legally there.

So, overall, he's reduced legal immigration far more than he's reduced illegal immigration into the United States during his first year in office.

Liz Landers:

David Bier, thank you so much for joining us.

David Bier:

Thanks for having me.