u/Legal-Yellow-6950

Hi everyone,

I know many of us are here because we are stuck somewhere in the immigration process. Some are waiting for USCIS. Some are waiting for NVC. Some are waiting for an interview. Some are in administrative processing. Some are waiting for a visa to finally be issued after years of paperwork, fees, medical exams, interviews, delays, and uncertainty.

The truth is, even if our cases are different, many of us are living through the same kind of pain.

Right now, families from 75 countries are being impacted by a pause on immigrant visa processing tied to public charge review. For many people, this means spouses, children, and parents are being kept apart with no clear timeline, no clear process, and very little public attention.

Some of you may be directly affected by this pause. Some of you may not be. But as intending immigrants, petitioners, spouses, parents, children, and families, we are all part of the same broader struggle: trying to navigate a system that often feels slow, confusing, and deeply unfair to the people living through it.

We are not asking anyone to take away attention from their own case or their own struggle. We are simply asking for empathy and support.

If this issue means something to you, please consider signing and sharing the petition. Even if you are not personally affected, your support can help bring more attention to families who are currently stuck in silence.

And more importantly, please share it with your friends, family, community groups, and anyone who may care about family separation, immigrant visa delays, or basic fairness in the immigration process.

Many of us know what it feels like to wait with no answers. Many of us know what it feels like to have our lives on hold because of immigration delays. That is why solidarity matters.

Today it may be our families affected by this pause.

Tomorrow it could be another group, another category, another delay, another unexplained policy change.

We are all in this together, and we kindly ask for your support.

Petition link: https://www.change.org/p/lift-the-75-country-pause-by-the-department-of-state

X account: https://x.com/EndThe75Pause

Thank you to anyone who signs, shares, or even just takes the time to understand what affected families are going through.

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 22 days ago

▲ 61 r/i130_75CountryPause

Ruling on the USCIS 39 country pause:

On April 30th, 2026, Judge Kobick granted the preliminary injunction in part in Doe v. Trump, the Jim Hacking lawsuit targeting the USCIS pause for 39 countries.

The order is not universal. It gives immediate relief to the 22 plaintiffs who submitted declarations, and the court told the parties to confer about whether the same order should apply to the remaining plaintiffs who had not yet filed declarations.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.293693/gov.uscourts.mad.293693.82.0.pdf

The court ordered two main things:

First, DHS/USCIS is enjoined from enforcing the adjudicative hold policy in PM 602-0192 and PM 602-0194 against the pending benefit applications of those 22 plaintiffs, and USCIS must immediately lift the hold for them.

Second, DHS/USCIS is enjoined from applying the “significant negative factor” policy in PA 2025-26 to the pending adjustment of status and work authorization applications of those same 22 plaintiffs.

The judge’s reasoning is actually pretty strong. She found that the USCIS policies are final agency action, reviewable under the APA, and not shielded just because the government calls them “temporary” or ties them to national security. The court specifically noted that USCIS said it would issue further operational guidance by March 2 and April 1, 2026, but those dates passed and USCIS made “no meaningful change” to the hold affecting plaintiffs’ applications.

The most damaging part for the government, in my opinion, is this: the court rejected the idea that national security automatically makes this unreviewable. The judge said the government cited no case supporting the broad claim that all administrative actions touching national security are beyond judicial review, and she emphasized that this was a “sweeping and indefinite halt” on domestic benefit adjudications for thousands of people already in the United States.

She also said the government failed to explain how giving relief to these plaintiffs would harm national security. The court stressed that plaintiffs were not asking to skip background checks or force approvals. USCIS can still investigate, run security checks, deny applications, reconsider approvals, and take individualized action where appropriate. What USCIS cannot do, at least for these plaintiffs, is keep them frozen under a categorical hold or apply nationality as a blanket negative factor.

What could it mean for the 75 country pause?

First, the Doe v. Trump does not directly control DOS or consular processing. Doe is a USCIS case about people already inside the United States with pending domestic benefit applications. The 75-country pause is a DOS/consular issue involving immigrant visa cases abroad, sitting in 221(g). So, they are different systems.

With that out of the way, however, the legal pressure point is similar: the government cannot just take a broad class of people, freeze their applications indefinitely, call it “temporary,” invoke vetting/public charge/national security/public benefits concerns, and then avoid meaningful judicial review forever.

That is where Judge Kobick’s reasoning becomes useful. In Doe, the government argued that the USCIS adjudicative holds were not really final agency action because they were temporary and more guidance was supposedly coming. The court did not buy that once the deadlines passed and the policy continued to operate in practice. USCIS had represented that further operational guidance would come by March 2 and April 1, 2026, but the court found that no meaningful change had been made to the hold affecting plaintiffs’ applications.

This is important for the 75-country pause because DOS is doing something similar rhetorically: treating the pause as part of an ongoing review or development of screening/vetting tools, while applicants remain stuck under 221(g) holds for months.

The longer that continues without concrete individualized adjudication, the more plaintiffs can argue: this is not just a normal temporary processing delay. It is a functioning policy with real legal consequences.

The second useful piece is the court’s rejection of the broad “national security equals no review” argument. Judge Kobick said the government cited no case supporting the idea that every administrative action touching national security is beyond judicial review, and she emphasized that courts regularly review executive action involving national security. She described the USCIS policy as a “sweeping and indefinite halt” on domestic benefit adjudications, not the kind of rare national-security action completely insulated from review.

For the 75-country pause, plaintiffs could use that same framing: yes, DOS can have legitimate vetting concerns; yes, the government can screen people; yes, consular processing has special doctrines like consular nonreviewability. But that does not automatically mean DOS can impose a broad, categorical, months-long immigrant visa freeze across nationalities and then say courts have no role at all because the words “vetting” or “public charge” appear somewhere in the background.

The third useful piece is the distinction between individualized review and categorical freezing. In Doe, the court did not say USCIS must approve anyone. It did not say USCIS cannot run background checks. It did not say the government cannot investigate applicants. The problem was the categorical hold and the categorical negative treatment based on country of origin. The court’s order still leaves USCIS free to deny applications, investigate individuals, reconsider approvals, conduct security checks, and take case-specific action. But it cannot use the blanket policies against the protected plaintiffs.

That maps pretty neatly onto the 75-country pause argument. A court does not need to tell DOS, “issue every visa.” A court could instead say something narrower: stop applying a categorical pause, resume individualized adjudication, and if a person is inadmissible on public charge grounds, security grounds, fraud grounds, documentation grounds, or anything else, make that individualized determination through the normal statutory process.

That is a much cleaner argument than “force the government to approve people.” It is: force the government to stop using a blanket freeze as a substitute for adjudication.

The fourth useful point is timing. In Doe, the court seemed bothered that the government had promised operational guidance but then did not meaningfully change the hold. For the 75-country pause, the longer DOS keeps people in 221(g) while saying tools or review processes are being developed, the more the plaintiffs can argue that the pause has crossed from “temporary review” into an operative final policy. At some point, “we are reviewing” starts to look less like a transitional process and more like the policy itself.

reddit.com

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 22 days ago

▲ 12 r/I130Suffering

For anyone affected by the 75-country immigrant visa pause, especially people with spouses, children, parents, or other family members stuck in 221(g) administrative processing, we created a subreddit specifically to track this issue in detail:

https://www.reddit.com/r/i130_75CountryPause/

The purpose of the page is to collect meaningful, organized information about the pause, including lawsuit updates, court filings, timelines, agency movement, OMB/OIRA updates, public charge rule developments, bond form/I-945 movement, embassy experiences, and any credible signs of policy change.

A lot of immigration subreddits are helpful for general NVC, I-130, consular processing, and visa questions, but this specific pause is unusual and hard to track unless people are following multiple lawsuits, government filings, State Department updates, Federal Register notices, and community reports at the same time.

Our goal is not to spread rumors or give false hope. It is to create one focused place where affected families can follow the actual developments, understand what is happening, and separate real movement from speculation.

reddit.com

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 23 days ago

▲ 34 r/NationalVisaCenter

https://www.reddit.com/r/i130_75CountryPause/

reddit.com

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 23 days ago

▲ 58 r/i130_75CountryPause

Background

https://www.reginfo.gov/public/Forward?SearchTarget=PRA&textfield=1615-0143&Image61.x=15&Image61.y=12

For those who have not been following closely, DHS/USCIS previously submitted the I-945 public charge bond to OMB, but on March 26, 2026, OMB withheld approval. Based on the language used in the OMB notice, the issue appeared to be that USCIS still needed to address public comments and return with a stronger submission at the final rule stage.

At the same time, DHS/USCIS has an active public charge NPRM from November 2025, which received roughly 8,846 comments. That rule is still somewhere in the review, drafting, and internal clearance phase.

Because of that, the working theory was that I-945 depended on the final public charge rule. In simple terms, no final rule meant no bond approval. The key question now is whether this updated submission is strong enough to get approved on its own, or whether OMB will again require the underlying public charge rule to be finalized first.

What happened on April 27

DHS/USCIS did not wait. Instead, it appears to have reworked the I-945 submission, using updated draft materials dated April 3, 2026, and then resubmitted the package to OMB on April 27. The new submission is now listed as “Received in OIRA,” meaning it is back under active review.

That is meaningful because it happened only about one month after OMB withheld approval. It suggests USCIS is not abandoning the bond pathway and is trying to push it forward again quickly.

What is inside the new submission

The updated materials include a draft I-945 form and draft instructions. The form is marked as a draft, but it is not just a vague placeholder. It contains a full bond structure, including obligor and co-obligor information, the bonded immigrant’s information, bond conditions, breach provisions, cancellation rules, appeal pathways, and DHS signature/acceptance fields.

The instructions also make clear what this form is for. They state that individuals determined to be inadmissible under INA §212(a)(4) may, if otherwise admissible, be admitted to the United States upon posting a suitable and proper public charge bond set by DHS or DOS, including adding the NVC number of the applicant.

The form and instructions reference the public charge inadmissibility statute, the bond authority, and the existing public charge bond framework. In plain English, DHS/USCIS may be trying to argue that it already has enough legal authority to operate this bond mechanism, even while the broader public charge rulemaking continues.

The submission also includes real-world burden modeling. The new ICR page shows an estimated 960 responses and 883 burden hours. OMB generally wants to know who will use the form, how often, how much time it will take, and whether the agency has justified the collection.

What this could mean

This update creates two possible paths. The faster path is that OMB accepts the revised submission and approves I-945 without waiting for the final public charge rule. If that happens, it would be a major signal that the bond mechanism can move under existing authority and could accelerate the broader process.

The more conservative path is that OMB withholds approval again or allows the submission to sit while the final rulemaking continues. If that happens, it would confirm the earlier theory that I-945 is still dependent on DHS finishing the underlying public charge rule first.

Why this matters for the 75-country pause

While this document is officially submitted by DHS/USCIS, much of the markups in this iteration, and previous iterations, had the inclusion of the Department of State (DOS).

Even in this iteration, the public charge form has a section to incorporate an NVC number, which is the specific number intending immigrants have in their DS-260 application.

This is a very strong signal that this form could be the, if not one of the, mechanisms to allow the pause to be lifted.

Before this update, the theory was: final public charge rule first, then I-945 approval, then possible movement on the pause. This new submission complicates that theory. It suggests DHS/USCIS is actively testing whether I-945 can move forward in parallel with the rulemaking, rather than waiting until the final rule is published.

That does not mean the pause is ending tomorrow. It also does not prove I-945 is the only mechanism needed to lift the pause. But it does show that the government is actively working on one of the tools that could be part of a case-by-case public charge solution.

What to watch next

The next OMB action is what matters here. If OMB approves the April 27 submission, that would be a major signal that the bond mechanism is moving forward. If OMB withholds approval again, that would suggest the form still cannot move independently from the final rule. And if the final public charge rule appears at OIRA soon, that would suggest both tracks may be converging at the same time. Expect the OMB review to last no more than 56 days, or ~June 29.

Bottom line

This is not just some background noise. DHS/USCIS resubmitted I-945 quickly after OMB withheld approval, and the updated package includes a detailed draft form, detailed instructions, burden estimates, and references to existing legal authority. That suggests active work and urgency.

The core question is now whether OMB will let the bond move forward on its own, or whether it will again require USCIS to finish the broader public charge rulemaking first. That is the issue to watch.

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 24 days ago

▲ 63 r/i130_75CountryPause

Hello to the community. This is a call to action, part II.

It has been officially 5 days (120 hours) since the petition on change.org has initiated:

https://www.change.org/p/lift-the-75-country-pause-by-the-department-of-state

So far, we have only received ~3,000 signatures. To those that signed, thank you...

But to those that didn't, I am inclined to ask - have you done your part?

Did you sign the petition? Did you share it Facebook, X, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.?

Have you forwarded it your friends and family members?

Have you asked them to forward it their friends? So on and so forth.

Have you followed up with the people you asked to share the petition?

Have you reposted the petition again on your accounts?

The reality is, our response rate is severely underwhelming. There have been:

31,868 petition views
2,477 petition shares
2,991 signatures

This subreddit has ~2,600 members. If each one of you sign, and shared with your family and friends, and followed up, we would easily top 10,000. Perhaps even 100,000.

Yet, when looking at the analytics of the petition, only ~350 signatures came from reddit.

Where are the remaining ~2,300?

Please don’t read this post and think “ah, others are already doing something, so I can hang back in the shadows”.

NO. You MUST be vocal. We have created the platforms.

Now use them to make your voice be heard.

In addition to the petition, I call on all of you to follow our X account:

https://x.com/EndThe75Pause

Do your part by going on X, and reply to posts from AILA, NILC, ACLU, CATO, the democratic leaders who initiated the GAO inquiry, and the representatives from your state.

Use hashtags such as #DOS75pause and #EndThe75Pause.

Find media outlets; CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.

Use hashtags such as #DOS75pause and #EndThe75Pause.

Create visibility.

Do it fervently, do not stop posting. Do it daily.

Add the link to the petition in your X posts.

Ask all senators to co-sponsor the petition.

Ask media outlets if they are willing to endorse the petition.

Encourage media authors to write about our story.

Pressure senators to take more action and bring more awareness.

If you all engage, we will build momentum.

u/Legal-Yellow-6950 — 24 days ago