A Rhode Island federal judge vacated Trump administration policies that halted asylum processing and delayed immigration benefit decisions for nationals from 39 travel-restricted countries.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Friday to resume processing asylum claims and immigration benefit requests, ruling that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unlawfully placed immigrants into legal uncertainty based on their countries of origin.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island issued a 135-page decision vacating policies adopted by the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS after the administration suspended asylum processing and other immigration adjudications for nationals from 39 countries subject to President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions.
The ruling requires federal officials to restart asylum reviews and resume adjudicating immigration benefits, including work permit applications, for affected applicants.
DHS and USCIS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The policies were announced in late 2025 after National Guard members were shot near the White House, allegedly by an Afghan national. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said at the time that asylum claims would not be processed “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
A coalition of plaintiffs, including the Service Employees International Union and the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, sued in March. The groups argued that the policies exceeded USCIS’s authority, violated federal law, were arbitrary and capricious, and infringed on constitutional protections.
Milagro Sique, CEO of Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, one of the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling.
“These policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused … profound fear and uncertainty for so many of our friends, neighbors, and coworkers,” Sique said in a statement. “Having the judicial process work as intended—by upholding the rule of law—gives us some reassurance that all is not lost and allows those who have been impacted to move forward with their lives in a meaningful way.”
Government lawyers defended the policies, arguing that they fell within authority granted by Congress under the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
McConnell rejected that argument in his decision, writing that the administration’s actions “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo” solely because of their place of birth.
The judge said USCIS violated federal law by claiming authority it did not have and by failing to adequately explain its decisions.
“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,” McConnell wrote.
He said USCIS acted unlawfully when it created the policies without properly considering how applicants had relied on existing immigration procedures.
“In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making,” McConnell wrote. “In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”
The ruling set aside the asylum and immigration benefit processing restrictions, as well as two other USCIS policies challenged in the lawsuit.
One of those policies required USCIS to review and reconsider earlier decisions granting immigration benefits to people from countries covered by Trump’s travel ban. The other amended the USCIS policy manual to direct agency employees to treat an applicant’s home country as a negative factor when deciding whether to approve benefit requests.
McConnell’s order requires the administration to resume processing affected cases, restoring adjudications for asylum seekers and other immigrants whose applications were paused under the challenged policies.
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