Federal Judge Rules Trump-era USCIS Policies Unlawful
A federal judge has ruled that U.S. 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 U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, struck down a slate of policies that the U.S. 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.”
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 organizations and labor unions that in March sued to challenge policies adopted by USCIS, which is part of the U.S. 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.