The Trump administration is suspending visa processing for people in 75 countries, according to Fox News. The administration said the move is meant to filter out applicants likely to rely on government benefits.
The Trump administration has recently focused on claims that certain migrant groups are exploiting the government. Most recently, President Donald Trump singled out Somali migrants and Minnesota, a state with a large Somali population and run by a former political opponent, Gov. Tim Walz.
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The focus follows a viral video highlighting fraud allegations in the state. Trump sent thousands of immigration agents to Minnesota, leading to several large protests and the fatal shooting of Renee Good.
State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the pause is to help stop the alleged “abuse” in the U.S. immigration system.
“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” Pigott told The Washington Post.
Trump’s previous immigration efforts
This isn’t the first time the administration restricted immigration. In December, the White House expanded a U.S. entry ban to include people from 39 countries, according to The Post. The decision came after authorities charged an Afghan national in the November shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.
In late November 2025, the Department of Homeland Security halted processing immigration requests from Afghan nationals and planned to review all pending asylum cases approved under the Biden administration.
Trump has previously said immigrants are a burden on public funds and ultimately hurt the economy. Some data doesn’t back up his claims. A 2017 study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found immigrants pay more in tax revenue than they take out.
In November, the Department of Homeland Security proposed ending federal “public charge” regulations started under former President Joe Biden. Public charge is a term used to describe someone who relies on government benefits.
The department said the rules “hamper DHS’s ability to make accurate, precise, and reliable determinations of whether certain aliens are likely at any time to become a public charge,” according to The Post.
The White House didn’t release a complete list of the affected countries, but it includes Afghanistan, Brazil, Iran, Russia and Somalia.
What are the concerns about the administration’s moves?
Immigration advocates said the White House is trying to replace the regulations with stricter ones. Advocates worry the changes would deny visas to immigrants who may rely on benefits for medical care and food.
Julia Gelatt, who is the associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, said the administration’s efforts could block eligible immigrants from accessing benefits.
“The likely result will be that many immigrant families will be afraid to access any public benefits for which a household member is eligible,” she wrote. “But given the complexities of benefits eligibility and immigration laws, hundreds of thousands of people in immigrant families—if not more—may nonetheless feel deterred from accessing needed supports.”
Gelatt added that immigrants eligible for public benefits use them at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens. She said the change would especially affect children.
“As the proposed rule itself recognizes, this could lead to ‘worse health outcomes’ for immigrants and communities, as well as ‘increased poverty, housing instability, reduced productivity, and lower educational attainment,’” Gelatt wrote. “In doing so, the futures of millions of U.S.-citizen children may be hampered.”
