The Unpublished Exception
The Secretary of State might besides any Nigerian whose journey serves the nationwide curiosity. There isn’t a printed customary, no type, no timeline, and no depend of who has ever been granted one.
The Authorities’s Case
Part 6(e) is written as a person authority. Its textual content speaks of exceptions made “on a case-by-case foundation for people,” determined by the Secretary of State “in his discretion,” in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Safety. Studying that clause to assist a broadcast class exemption inverts what the President wrote: the December proclamation withdrew the broad family-based exception carried by Proclamation 10949 and directed extraordinary circumstances to the national-interest route as a substitute of to new courses. Congress vested the President with broad entry-suspension authority at INA § 212(f), 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), bolstered at INA § 215(a)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1185(a)(1); the President exercised that authority in Proclamation 10998 and created the part 6(e) exception himself. The Supreme Court docket in Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 684 (2018), learn the statute as one which “exudes deference to the President in each clause.” A writer in New York doesn’t get to redraft an instrument of overseas affairs. An administration that publishes standards might discover itself held to them, and it good points nothing by volunteering that publicity.
What the Clause Says and Withholds
Part 6(b) carries the explicit exceptions; its checklist is closed, and this quantity doesn’t ask for it to be reopened: lawful everlasting residents; twin nationals touring on an undesignated passport; specified diplomatic, NATO, and international-organization classifications; any athlete or member of an athletic workforce, together with coaches, individuals performing a needed assist function, and fast family, touring for the World Cup, the Olympics, or different main sporting occasions because the Secretary of State determines; Particular Immigrant Visas below 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(D); and immigrant visas for persecuted ethnic and non secular minorities in Iran. Whereas overseas physicians matched to American residencies are excluded from that checklist, World Cup and Olympic athletes are expressly accommodated inside it. [Documented]
Elsewhere in part 6, subsection (e) permits exceptions “on a case-by-case foundation for people” whose journey the Secretary of State finds, in his discretion, would serve a United States nationwide curiosity, exercised by the Secretary or a designee in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Safety or her designee. Part 6(f) grants the mirror authority to the Secretary of Homeland Safety; part 6(d) grants a narrower one to the Legal professional Basic, for journey advancing a vital nationwide curiosity involving the Division of Justice. Three officers maintain three separate authorities, and every is exercised on a person file. [Documented]
Forensic Plate 1 — Who Might Grant an Exception, and On What Customary
Distinguishing Standards from Categorical Lessons
Publication of standards below part 6(e) would depart each adjudication particular person. A consular officer would nonetheless conduct the interview, apply 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g), decide unusual visa eligibility, and refer an applicable file upward; the Secretary of State or a lawful designee would train the national-interest discretion the clause vests. Publication would subsequently change what the applicant can know and what the federal government can reveal, with out altering who decides or on what file. [Inference]
Accardi binds an company to guidelines it has promulgated as binding, and steering printed as non-binding doesn’t routinely purchase that pressure. United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260 (1954). [Documented]
Nothing sought on this Half asks the Division to undertake a binding rule. [Inference]
The executive observe relied on is latest and is claimed solely at its narrowest. Through the pandemic-era entry proclamations the Division of State printed nationwide curiosity exception classes, in notices whose procedures different and a few of which handled named classes as presumptively lined, with out amending the underlying proclamations; the archived announcement for Schengen, United Kingdom, and Eire journey, cited within the docket, is the mannequin relied on. [Documented]
The Absence of a Printed Customary
On January 28, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed Delegation of Authority No. 614, printed February 11 at 91 Fed. Reg. 6,283. It delegated the Division’s capabilities below sections 6(d) by means of 6(f) to the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs and licensed redelegation. On February 10, Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar signed Delegation No. 614-1, efficient that day and printed Might 7 at 91 Fed. Reg. 24,953, redelegating these capabilities to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs for case-by-case train. The Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, the Deputy Secretary for Administration and Assets, the Underneath Secretary for Administration, and the Assistant Secretary retain concurrent authority. Neither discover publishes substantive standards. [Documented]
The Division’s common discover tells affected candidates that they could submit functions and attend interviews however could also be ineligible for issuance. It publishes no common exception-request process. It does establish one route: adoptive households ought to proceed the unusual visa course of and want take no extra step to obtain case-by-case national-interest consideration. [Documented]
No comparable printed route was positioned for the opposite courses examined on this Half.
Exterior the adoption context, the route stays opaque. [Inference]
Searches of the Division’s printed steering for this quantity positioned no customary for what journey by a piece 5 nationwide serves the nationwide curiosity, and no depend of exceptions sought, granted, or refused, for Nigeria or any designated nation.
With out a printed path to it, the exception stays out of attain for the applicant standing at a consular window in Lagos. [Inference]
Classes a Printed Customary Would Attain
4 groupings maintain documentary proof predating any consular interview, verifiable towards American registers: physicians and nurses who’ve already obtained related American credentials from state licensing boards or from the certifying commissions that consider overseas medical and nursing schooling; degree-seeking college students holding a Type I-20 issued by means of the Scholar and Change Customer Info System below 8 U.S.C. § 1372; researchers recognized as principal investigators or key personnel in publicly accessible federal award information; and beneficiaries of employment-based petitions permitted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers. Every doc proves prior institutional or governmental verification and nothing extra; neither admissibility nor national-interest eligibility follows from it, and the consular course of would nonetheless determine each. [Inference]
The Nation-Stage Waiver Contained in the Bond Rule
Restriction on Nigerian journey operates by means of two devices, and Quantity I established the second: the Visa Bond Program, made everlasting at 91 Fed. Reg. 48,757 on August 3, 2026, over the signature block of Morvared Namdarkhan, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs. Bonds are licensed by INA § 221(g)(3), 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g)(3), and run at $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000, with $15,000 the quantity consular officers are ordinarily anticipated to set. The Division’s influence assertion information an 83 % issuance decline throughout the fifty pilot nations to July 2026, with near half of bonded candidates declining to pay. [Documented]
Throughout the identical rule, 22 C.F.R. § 41.11(c)(3) permits the Assistant Secretary or a designate to waive the bond “for an alien, nation, or a class of aliens” the place the waiver shouldn’t be opposite to the nationwide curiosity. The regulation creates no applicant-initiated process for requesting a waiver, and consular officers might suggest waivers on nationwide or humanitarian grounds. [Documented]
The Division’s personal public nation checklist nonetheless described the short-term pilot and its earlier $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000 tiers when checked for this quantity on August 29, 2026, weeks after the everlasting rule raised them. [Documented]
Aid at nation stage is a time period of the regulation. Delegations Nos. 614 and 614-1 place the part 6(e) perform throughout the Bureau of Consular Affairs, with authority redelegated to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary. Part 41.11(c)(3), in contrast, assigns bond-waiver authority to the Assistant Secretary or a designate. [Documented]
No public instrument positioned for this overview individually designates the bond-waiver authority to the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.
Consular Affairs can coordinate the 2 cures, however the printed file doesn’t set up that each powers are vested in the identical official. [Inference]
Sequence issues between the 2, and one sentence settles it. For a suspended classification the part 6(e) exception comes first; the bond requirement, and any waiver of it, arises solely as soon as the applicant is in any other case issuable, so a bond waiver by itself reopens nothing. [Inference]
Forensic Plate 2 — The Waiver Written Into the Bond Rule
What the Order Leaves Open
Part 5(j)(ii) suspends the entry of Nigerian nationals as immigrants and as nonimmigrants on B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M, and J visas, and part 5(j)(iii) directs decreased validity for different nonimmigrant classifications. Employment classifications outdoors the suspended checklist subsequently stay issuable below Proclamation 10998 itself, usually on decreased validity, topic to the proclamation’s scope provisions, all unusual grounds of ineligibility, and every other independently relevant restriction. [Documented]
A discount in validity shouldn’t be a suspension of entry. Descriptions of the instrument as a complete closure of American employment routes misstate the order, and the misstatement might deter in any other case eligible Nigerians from pursuing classifications the proclamation doesn’t droop. [Inference]
Why Publication and Not Litigation
No litigation is proposed right here. Division of State v. Muñoz, 602 U.S. 899 (2024), held that the citizen plaintiff there had no basic liberty curiosity in her noncitizen partner’s admission; part 11(c) of the proclamation disclaims any enforceable proper; and overview of a discretionary national-interest dedication below the Administrative Process Act would confront 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2). [Documented]
Challenges to company guidelines and last insurance policies stand on completely different floor, because the litigation examined in Half 5 demonstrates, however the route from a person Nigerian applicant’s refusal to a reviewing courtroom is ordinarily foreclosed, and the Kleindienst v. Mandel opening is exceptionally slim. Publication is subsequently sought as an act of administration, as a result of it’s the sooner and surer path. [Inference]
Questions the Public File Does Not Reply
No public dataset information the variety of part 6(e) or part 6(f) exceptions sought or granted to Nigerian nationals since January 1, 2026, and no determine is asserted right here. On whether or not the waiver authority at 22 C.F.R. § 41.11(c)(3) has been exercised at nation or class stage for any designated nation, the general public file examined for this quantity is silent.
Demand
To the Secretary of State: publish, below part 6(e), the standards by which journey by a nationwide of a piece 5 nation is assessed to serve a United States nationwide curiosity, along with the strategy of submission and the combination grant and refusal counts by nation and class. Particular person adjudication is preserved; solely the usual turns into seen.
To the Secretary of Homeland Safety: publish the parallel standards and counts below part 6(f), and establish the workplace throughout the Division that coordinates on part 6(e) referrals.
To the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs: state whether or not the waiver authority at 22 C.F.R. § 41.11(c)(3) has been exercised for any nation or class since August 3, 2026, and on what evaluation.
Proper of reply for each officer and establishment named above is open below the standing discover on the entrance of this quantity.
Proof Docket — Half 1
Major authorities. Proclamation No. 10998, §§ 5(j)(ii)–(iii), 6(b), 6(d)–(f), 11(c), 90 Fed. Reg. 59,717 (Dec. 19, 2025) · U.S. Division of State, Delegation of Authority No. 614, 91 Fed. Reg. 6,283 (Feb. 11, 2026); Delegation of Authority No. 614-1, 91 Fed. Reg. 24,953 (Might 7, 2026) · Visas: Visa Bond Program, 91 Fed. Reg. 48,757 (Aug. 3, 2026); 22 C.F.R. § 41.11(c)(3) · INA §§ 212(f), 215(a)(1), 221(g), 221(g)(3); 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(27)(D), 1182(a), 1182(f), 1185(a)(1), 1201(g), 1201(g)(3), 1372 · 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2) · Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667 (2018) · Division of State v. Muñoz, 602 U.S. 899 (2024) · Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972) · United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260 (1954).
Documentary file. U.S. Division of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Suspension of Visa Issuance to Overseas Nationals to Shield the Safety of the US (Journey.State.Gov, up to date Feb. 2, 2026), together with its adoption-case steering · U.S. Division of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Nationwide curiosity exceptions for sure vacationers from the Schengen Space, United Kingdom, and Eire (archived announcement, Mar. 2, 2021).
Full citations for each entry above are set out within the Consolidated Proof Docket printed with this collection at www.africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/visa-ban-volume-3-evidence-docket, with [email protected] because the archival backup.
