NEW YORK, Aug. 29 -- They had sat for the interview. They had produced the sponsor's tax returns, the affidavit of support, the bank letters. In the State Department's own phrasing, they had supplied "additional evidence that demonstrates he or she overcomes the public charge refusal." Then a consular officer refused them anyway, because of the passport they were carrying.

That sequence played out at consulates across five continents from January onward, and last week a federal judge in Manhattan took it apart. Judge Jeannette A. Vargas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated the policy on August 21, finding that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had ordered something the statute does not permit him to order...