US judge strikes down Trump policies targeting immigrants from 39 countries

Judge says USCIS policies left immigrants in legal limbo without authority

Representational photo: US Justice Department logo can be seen in this photo. Reuters

A federal judge on Friday ruled that US President Donald Trump's administration had adopted a series of unlawful policies that have barred people from 39 countries from receiving decisions on applications for asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship.

Chief US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, struck down a slate of policies that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services had adopted that he said left people from dozens of African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries in "indeterminate legal limbo."

He said the immigrants had adhered to the legal processes that Congress had enacted 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, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said it adopted the policies without statutory and regulatory authority and based on "anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making."

"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," he wrote.

The ruling marked a victory for a coalition of immigrant service organisations and labor unions that in March sued to challenge policies adopted by USCIS, which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security.

"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, the head 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 a ramped-up immigration crackdown the Trump administration carried out after the November shooting of two National Guard members stationed in Washington, DC, which prosecutors say was carried out by an Afghan immigrant.

The man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has pleaded not guilty.

In the wake of that incident, Trump vowed on social media to "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US 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 full travel bans included Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, Somalia, Venezuela and Syria. The administration justified the travel restrictions on vetting and security grounds.

The policies USCIS adopted placed a hold on processing immigration benefit applications from people from those 39 countries, which McConnell said "placed the lives of countless individuals on hold—solely by virtue of their countries of birth."

"But the rule of law has to apply to everyone equally and, as evident here, USCIS has neither 'followed the law' nor 'done things the right way,'" he wrote. "Indeed, the agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s actions."