Do Cuba, Yemen, and Haiti Adult Children Get Family-Based Visas Now?

(CUBA) Adult children and siblings from Cuba, Yemen, and Haiti have seen their hopes of joining relatives in the United States 🇺🇸 sharply cut off under 2025 travel restrictions that fully suspend most family-based immigration visas for these countries. The suspension, ordered under a new series of travel bans signed by President Donald Trump on June 4, 2025, means that many extended family members who waited years in long visa lines are now effectively blocked from entering the country as immigrants.

Scope of the bans and who is affected

The bans apply to both immigrants and nonimmigrants from the three countries, but the impact on family reunification is especially severe for Cuban, Yemeni, and Haitian families who filed petitions for adult children and siblings.

• Under the new rules, the entry of Cuban, Yemeni, and Haitian nationals as immigrants and nonimmigrants is fully suspended, with only narrow space left for some immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
• In practice, most extended relatives are cut off, regardless of how long they have been waiting.

Country-specific effects

Cuba

The measures hit Cuba in both symbolic and practical ways.

• The U.S. Embassy in Havana still receives and processes immigrant visa cases on paper, but under the 2025 travel restrictions, issuance for many categories has been frozen.
• Officials can review files, but once a visa reaches the point of approval, the full suspension on immigrant visas for Cuban nationals blocks final issuance.
• For adult children and siblings of Cuban Americans—already facing long wait times and political swings—the new rules create an additional barrier.

Yemen

Yemeni families face a different but equally severe situation.

• The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a remains closed because of the conflict in Yemen, and immigrant visa processing has been shifted to the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti for several years.
• Since January 20, 2025, Yemeni nationals have been subject to a full suspension of entry as both immigrants and nonimmigrants, justified by Washington as a response to security concerns and ongoing U.S. military operations in Yemen.
• Even if a Yemeni family manages to get all documents to Djibouti, the travel ban still blocks approval of family-based immigration visas for adult children and siblings, cutting off one of the few legal routes out of a war-torn country.

Haiti

Haitian nationals are experiencing similar restrictions.

• The 2025 travel ban orders a full suspension of immigrant and nonimmigrant entry for Haitians, covering the same broad categories as the Cuba and Yemen bans.
• This includes family-based immigration visas for adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
• Given Haiti’s history of natural disasters, political crisis, and economic hardship, the new restrictions narrow family reunification options at a time when many families are trying to move relatives out of deepening instability.

Summary table of the 2025 suspensions

Immediate relatives are generally defined as spouses, unmarried minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens. These close relatives may still have limited ways to seek entry under exemptions or waivers, though each case can be complex and uncertain.

How this changes the family immigration process

Under the usual rules:

1. U.S. citizens file petitions under different family-based categories.
2. After approval by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), relatives wait for their priority dates to become current under the visa bulletin system.
3. Once a visa number becomes available, consular officers issue the immigrant visa and the beneficiary can enter the United States.

Under the 2025 policy changes:

• Even when a long-awaited visa number finally becomes available, consular officers are barred from issuing the actual visa because of bans tied to nationality, not to any individual conduct.
• Result: adult children and siblings who were approved on paper are effectively blocked from receiving a visa.

Legal and practical consequences

• The U.S. Department of State explains on its official family immigration page that family-based categories are meant to allow citizens and permanent residents to bring certain relatives to live in the United States as lawful permanent residents: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/family-immigration.html
• According to analysis by VisaVerge.com, the June 4, 2025 measures go beyond earlier, more targeted restrictions by imposing a full suspension of immigrant visa issuance for nationals of Cuba, Yemen, and Haiti in virtually all categories outside a narrow group of “immediate relatives.”
• Extended family members, including adult children and siblings, fall under preference categories and do not benefit from the same exceptions.

Reactions and arguments

• Officials defending the policy frame it as a matter of security and border control, pointing to unstable conditions and, in Yemen’s case, direct U.S. military involvement.
• Critics, including many immigration lawyers and community advocates, argue that blanket measures based on nationality punish families who followed the legal process.
• They note that security checks for immigration cases are already extensive and question why entire classes of relatives should be banned regardless of individual background.

Human impact and practical burdens

• On the ground, the human effects appear in missed weddings, grandparents who never meet grandchildren, and adult sons and daughters forced to remain in dangerous or unstable situations abroad.
• The bans do not cancel already filed petitions, but they freeze the final step that turns an approved petition into an actual entry document.
• Families are left in limbo, often paying storage fees for medical tests and police records that may expire before they can ever be used.

Current status and outlook

• There is no formal end date written into the 2025 orders for Cuba, Yemen, or Haiti.
• The bans remain in place unless a future presidential order or new policy lifts or alters them.
• Applicants and their U.S. relatives continue to check consular websites and public statements for any sign of change; even a small policy shift could reopen long-closed paths.

Until that happens, adult children and siblings from these three countries remain, under current U.S. policy, not eligible to receive family-based immigration visas, regardless of how long they have waited, how carefully they followed the rules, or how strong their ties are to family members already in the United States.