A fresh State Department directive instructing consular officers to consider chronic illnesses, including obesity, when deciding visa applications has provoked alarm among immigration experts and rights groups.
The guidance, circulated to U.S. embassies and consulates and examined by KFF Health News, advises officers to weigh whether applicants have conditions that 'can require hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of care and to judge whether they might become a 'public charge'. That language explicitly names cardiovascular disease, respiratory illnesses, cancers, diabetes, metabolic and neurological disorders, mental-health conditions, and obesity as factors that warrant extra scrutiny.
