Shirley man joins lawsuit challenging Trump visa pause as wife, daughter stuck in Guatemala

A Long Island man is among a group of plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit this week challenging the Trump administration’s recent ban on issuing visas to people from 75 countries.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday by a group that includes American citizens, immigration nonprofits and legal organizations, accuses the administration of seeking to "eviscerate decades of settled immigration law."

The government last month suspended the approval of visas from 75 countries, most of them non-European and with large non-white populations.

One plaintiff, Cesar Andred Aguirre, of Shirley, is a U.S. citizen and a warehouse supervisor who pays taxes, according to the lawsuit. His wife and 2-year-old daughter are now stuck in Guatemala, one of the 75 countries, after she was told she could not receive a visa.

The State Department said a "pause" was necessary to prevent immigrants from coming here to become "public charges" collecting welfare and other benefits.

In response to the lawsuit, Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the State Department, said in a statement that a visa was a privilege and not a right, and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated immigrants should be financially "self-sufficient."

"Such a requirement prevents billions in waste, fraud, and abuse and protects public benefits for Americans," Pigott said. "The Department is pausing issuance to evaluate and enhance screening and vetting procedures — but we will never stop fighting for American citizens first."

The National Immigration Law Center and five other legal organization who filed the suit said the ban is "based on an unsupported and demonstrably false claim that nationals of the covered countries migrate to the United States to improperly rely on cash welfare and are likely to become 'public charges.' "

Most people applying for immigrant visas are not eligible for cash welfare for years, the lawsuit states.

Anna Gallagher, executive director of CLINIC, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that "this administration is trying to shut down lawful immigration from nearly half the countries in the world without legal authority or justification.” 

Aguirre's wife, Dania Mariela Escobar Carranza, lived in Shirley with Aguirre and their two children, ages 7 and 2. In January, the family traveled to Escobar Carranza’s native Guatemala for her scheduled consular interview, the lawsuit states. Her visa had already been approved and the fees paid.

She went to the U.S. consulate on Jan. 20 and handed in her documents but was told her interview was actually the next day. When she came back, she was told she could not receive her visa because of the pause, which had gone into effect the same day, the lawsuit states.

Escobar Carranza remains in Guatemala with her youngest daughter, who is still nursing and has Turner Syndrome, a genetic condition that affects only females.

The girl "requires frequent medical care; she needs her heart and eyes to be constantly monitored and recently had ear surgery," the lawsuit states. "The medical care she needs is not available in Guatemala. She has already missed medical appointments because of the ban."

Aguirre declined to comment on Thursday, according to the National Immigration Law Center.