federal judge on Friday struck down a series of policies that left immigrants from 39 countries unable to receive decisions on asylum claims, work permits, green cards, and citizenship applications, ruling the Trump administration had acted without legal authority, Reuters reported.
Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell, based in Providence, Rhode Island, invalidated the policies adopted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, finding they had placed people from dozens of African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries in what he called “indeterminate legal limbo.”
McConnell said the affected individuals had followed the legal processes Congress had established and USCIS had adopted by regulation, yet had been “stuck waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate.”
The judge found USCIS had acted without statutory and regulatory authority and had allowed “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making” to shape its policies.
“USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” McConnell wrote.
The ruling handed a win to a coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions that sued in March over the USCIS policies. The coalition was represented by Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group.
“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s head.
USCIS adopted the processing holds as part of a broader immigration crackdown that followed the November shooting of two National Guard members stationed in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors say the shooting was carried out by an Afghan immigrant, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who has pleaded not guilty.
Following that shooting incident, Trump vowed on social media to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.” His administration went on to expand travel bans to 39 countries — among them Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, Somalia, Venezuela, and Syria — pointing to vetting and security concerns.
McConnell ruled those processing holds had “placed the lives of countless individuals on hold — solely by virtue of their countries of birth.”
“The rule of law has to apply to everyone equally,” he wrote, adding that USCIS had “violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s actions.”
McConnell was appointed to the federal bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.
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