A federal judge ruled Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration adopted a series of illegal policies that barred people from 39 countries from receiving decisions on applications for asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship.
Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, struck down a series of policies adopted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that he said left people in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East in “indeterminate legal limbo.”
He said immigrants had adhered to the legal processes that Congress had passed and USCIS had adopted by regulation, but they were “stuck waiting, for months, on applications for benefits that USCIS refuses to adjudicate.”
The judge, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said he adopted the policies without statutory and regulatory authority and based on “anti-immigrant sentiments that he is prohibited from allowing to influence his decision-making.”
“USCIS’s control over decisions cannot be attributed to anything these individuals did wrong; rather, it results solely from the chance of their birth,” he wrote.
The ruling marks a victory for a coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions that filed a lawsuit in March challenging policies adopted by USCIS, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“This decision reaffirms a basic principle: The federal government cannot close legal immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on their origin,” said Skye Perryman, president of the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
USCIS adopted the policies as part of an increased immigration crackdown by the Trump administration following the November shooting of two National Guard members stationed in Washington, D.C., which prosecutors say was carried out by an Afghan immigrant.
The man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has pleaded not guilty.
Following the incident, Trump pledged on social media to “permanently suspend migration from all third world countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” and he expanded the number of countries now subject to full or partial travel bans under his administration to cover 39 nations.
Countries subject to total travel bans included Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, Somalia, Venezuela and Syria. The administration has justified the travel restrictions on grounds of control and security.
The policies adopted by USCIS suspended the processing of immigration benefits applications for people from these 39 countries, which McConnell said “put the lives of countless people on hold – solely because of their country of birth.”
“But the rule of law must apply to all equally, and as is evident here, USCIS has neither ‘followed the law’ nor ‘done things the right way,’” he wrote. “Indeed, the agency has violated the immigration laws that Congress has entrusted it with the responsibility of administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s actions.”
