Immigrant visa interview scheduling pauses worldwide, and EB-5’s place is unclear

The United States Department of State has stopped scheduling immigrant visa interviews at its posts abroad while consular officers are trained on the public charge test. The measure began in early August 2026 and was reported on 27 August. No departmental notice setting out which categories it covers has been published, so an investor holding an approved EB-5 petition cannot yet establish whether it reaches them.

What has been reported, and what has not

The department has not suspended the issuing of immigrant visas. It has stopped booking new interviews while it trains consular officers on the public charge ground of inadmissibility. An official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the measure began in early August, that interviews already booked for August were not cancelled, and that those appointments are being moved into September, October and November. The same official said the pause was not expected to last beyond early to mid-September — a forecast from one unnamed source, not a published commitment.

The same report carries a statement that pulls the other way: that immigrant visas for workers with a sponsoring employer are not affected, because those applicants can demonstrate earnings. It is unattributed, and the report does not establish whether that employer-sponsored exception extends to EB-5.

Why this is not the policy a court struck down

On 21 August 2026 Judge Jeannette A. Vargas vacated a different State Department policy in Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio, No. 1:26-cv-00858, in the Southern District of New York. That policy, announced on 14 January 2026 and effective from 21 January, directed consular officers to refuse immigrant visas to nationals of 75 designated countries on public charge grounds. The judgment set it aside as contrary to law and in excess of statutory authority, and declared that it breached 8 U.S.C. §1201(g), 8 U.S.C. §1152(a)(1)(A) and 22 C.F.R. §40.6, and exceeded the Secretary of State’s authority under 8 U.S.C. §1104(a).

The remedy shows how different the two measures are. Under the January policy interviews went ahead and the visa was refused at the end of them; the opinion records that named plaintiffs were interviewed and then refused. The judgment vacated the refusals that rested solely on the policy and left standing those supported by another ground, even where the notice cited the policy as well. The reported August measure stops the booking instead, and so does not produce the kind of refusal that was at issue in Vargas.

The legal basis has not been published

The department has not stated the authority it is relying on. What follows is one argument available on the materials, not a justification anyone has offered.

Under 22 C.F.R. §42.81(a), quoted in the opinion, once a visa application has been properly completed the consular officer must issue the visa or refuse it. The opinion also records that an interview is normally scheduled at the post with jurisdiction and that the officer adjudicates there. What the materials do not fix is when an application becomes properly completed for the purposes of that duty. If completion arrives in practice at the interview, postponing the interview postpones the duty rather than breaching it.

Section 1104(a) supplies the room for that argument. Congress gave the Secretary of State the administration of consular functions but carved out the granting and refusing of visas, which it reserves to consular officers — the carve-out the court relied on in August. Scheduling is neither granting nor refusing, so it plausibly falls on the administrative side of the line. Plausibly is as far as this goes: no decision applying the provision to a scheduling pause has been identified, and the department has published nothing invoking it. Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US immigration policy programme at the Migration Policy Institute, told the Associated Press that the pause sounded short, but that if it ran longer she would expect litigation.

Where an approved EB-5 investor stands

No source describes any change to approved petitions or to priority dates. Two populations should also not be run together: the rescheduling the official described concerned applicants who already held August appointments, while an investor still waiting for a first date faces the different question of whether a date can be assigned at all.

The route determines where exposure could arise. USCIS sets out two paths once Form I-526 or I-526E is approved: file Form DS-260 and take the visa at a consulate abroad, or file Form I-485 and adjust status inside the United States. Only consular processing could fall within the reported pause, and whether EB-5 does is what has not been established. Adjustment may be available instead to an investor already lawfully in the United States with a visa number available, which is a question to put to counsel rather than to assume.

A second date cuts across both. The Department of Homeland Security’s final rule on the public charge ground of inadmissibility, published on 20 July 2026, rescinds the 2022 regulations and, in its own words, “restores broader discretion for DHS officers to evaluate all pertinent facts”. It takes effect on 18 September 2026 and applies to applications for admission made on or after that date, and to adjustment applications postmarked or submitted on or after it. DHS states that the rule does not apply to visa determinations made by the State Department. The distinction is between stages rather than routes: the consular route still ends in an application for admission, so an investor admitted on or after 18 September meets the new standard at the border even though it did not govern the visa decision.

What the public charge test weighs

The statute makes a person inadmissible if, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, they are likely at any time to become a public charge, and requires the officer to consider five factors: age; health; family status; assets, resources and financial status; and education and skills. Guidance directs officers to weigh the totality of the circumstances, and no single factor decides, apart from a missing affidavit of support where one is required. An EB-5 investor commits $800,000 in a targeted employment area or $1,050,000 elsewhere, for petitions filed on or after 15 March 2022, which may be relevant to the fourth factor without being a finding on the test. DHS, explaining its own rule, restated the position that “a healthy person in the prime of life who is already employed in the United States or who has prospective employment generally would not be found likely at any time to become a public charge”. That sentence addresses adjustment applicants inside the United States, and an EB-5 investment does not by itself establish employment there.

What to watch

Whether posts resume booking in early to mid-September is the first test of an account that has no published backing. The DHS rule takes effect on 18 September 2026. In the litigation, the parties must file a joint letter by 11 September 2026 on the remaining claims, and no appeal or stay had been reported when this article was checked on 28 August 2026 — which matters because the January policy could return in some form if the judgment is disturbed. The Associated Press reported that existing August appointments were being moved rather than withdrawn; no applicant should treat that as confirmation of their own appointment, which is a matter for the post. The programme’s other autumn milestones are a separate set of dates, covered in the September deadline analysis.