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Immigrants can be denied visas if they are obese or have health problems

November 11, 2025 | | Print Article

Foreigners seeking to relocate to the United States could soon have a more difficult time obtaining visas if they are obese or suffer from other common health problems.

The New York Post reported that the State Department sent a cable to embassy and consular officials last week instructing them to “weed out applicants entering the US based on their age or the likelihood they would need to rely on public benefits.” The paper cited an official cable obtained by KFF Health News.

“You must consider an applicant’s health,” the cable stated.

According to the independent health news outlet, the “guidance says that such people could become a ‘public charge’ — a potential drain on U.S. resources — because of their health issues or age.”

“You must consider an applicant’s health,” the cable states. “Certain medical conditions – including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, cancers, diabetes, metabolic diseases, neurological diseases, and mental health conditions – can require hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of care.”

Visa officers are also encouraged to take other conditions into consideration when making their assessments, including obesity, which it notes can cause asthma, sleep apnea, and high blood pressure, in their assessment of whether an immigrant could become a public charge and therefore should be denied entry into the U.S.,” according to KFF Health News.

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“All of these can require expensive, long-term care,” the guidance reads. Additionally, it directs the visa officers to make a determination on whether applicants have the ability to pay for medical treatment that wouldn’t require U.S. government assistance.

The cable reads, “Does the applicant have adequate financial resources to cover the costs of such care over his entire expected lifespan without seeking public cash assistance or long-term institutionalization at government expense?”

Additionally, visa officers are instructed to take the health of applicants’ family members into consideration. “Do any of the dependents have disabilities, chronic medical conditions, or other special needs and require care such that the applicant cannot maintain employment?”

Catholic Legal Immigration Network senior attorney Charles Wheeler warned that visa officers are being encouraged to develop “their own thoughts about what could lead to some sort of medical emergency or sort of medical costs in the future.”

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“That’s troubling because they’re not medically trained, they have no experience in this area, and they shouldn’t be making projections based on their own personal knowledge or bias,” he said, according to KFF Health News.

The Hill reports that a State Department official said that decisions on whether or not to issue visas have “always been at the discretion of an officer” and that visa officers are not being directed to reject applicants based on certain medical conditions but to take the “overall impact” into consideration if they would be “unlikely to be able to pay for their own medical care.”

“It’s addressed on an individual, case-by-case basis,” the unnamed official said.

Chris Donaldson
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