Judge Strikes Down Trump Policy Affecting 39 Countries

A federal judge on Friday struck down a Trump administration immigration policy that had effectively frozen asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship processing for citizens of 39 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The sweeping 135-page ruling from U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island accused the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of acting unlawfully and with discriminatory intent.

Background: The National Guard Shooting and Policy Response

The policies struck down were enacted in November 2025, following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., over the Thanksgiving weekend. An Afghan national who had been granted asylum was charged in the attack. The Trump administration cited this incident as justification for sweeping new restrictions on immigration processing, according to AP News.

Initially, the policies froze all USCIS asylum cases regardless of nationality. In March 2026, USCIS resumed processing most asylum applications but continued the pause for citizens of the 39 travel-ban countries, leaving thousands of applicants in legal limbo for approximately seven months.

The Ruling: A Sweeping Legal Rebuke

Judge McConnell, an Obama appointee who serves as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, did not merely find procedural errors. In unusually strong language, he accused the agency of using “pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments” and systematically dismantled the administration’s legal arguments.

“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 judge also highlighted the human toll of the policies, noting that “over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures.” He emphasized that the hold on adjudications “cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth.”

The ruling applies to all pending cases at USCIS involving people from the 39 affected countries, not just those included in the lawsuit, giving it broad remedial impact. However, the ruling does not affect immigration judges who grant asylum to those stopped at the border; it applies only to USCIS processing.

Reaction from Advocacy Groups

Immigrant advocacy organizations celebrated the decision as a landmark legal victory.

Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs, said: “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. These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives.”

Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, called the ruling “a powerful precedent that the administration cannot ignore the law as laid down by Congress and cannot arbitrarily bar immigration benefits on the basis of national origin by fiat.”

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads the #AfghanEvac coalition, described the decision as “a significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them.” He recounted meeting families in Texas whose lives had been upended by the delays.

Shev Dalal-Dheini, Senior Director of Government Relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called it “an important legal victory to ensure that legal immigration pathways remain open and that USCIS is held accountable to doing their congressionally mandated job of adjudicating applications.”

Broader Legal and Political Context

The ruling came on the same day the U.S. Senate voted to pass a $70 billion immigration bill to fund Trump’s enforcement agenda, highlighting the tension between the judicial and legislative branches on immigration policy.

This decision is one of several legal setbacks for the administration’s immigration agenda. The Supreme Court is considering whether to let the administration revive a restrictive asylum policy, and an appeals court recently rejected Trump’s no-bond immigration detentions, setting the stage for Supreme Court review. Separate lawsuits are also pending in New York and the District of Columbia challenging the suspension of visas for people from 75 countries.

In its motion to dismiss, which the court denied, the government argued that Congress gave the executive branch broad authority over immigration policy. “This case rests on a remarkable premise: that a federal court should prevent an agency from issuing the very policy guidance that provides government personnel with the guardrails necessary to ensure consistent, non-arbitrary, and individualized decisionmaking consistent with federal law,” the government wrote.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration is expected to appeal the decision to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, potentially setting up a Supreme Court showdown.

What’s Next

The ruling establishes a powerful precedent that could influence other pending challenges to the administration’s immigration policies. However, the administration retains multiple avenues to continue its enforcement agenda through executive action, new policy guidance, or legislative override. The ultimate impact of the decision will depend on the outcome of expected appeals and whether the administration attempts to craft new policies that address the court’s legal concerns.

For the thousands of applicants from the 39 affected countries whose cases have been stalled since November 2025, the ruling means USCIS must resume processing their applications. But with the legal battle far from over, many remain in a precarious position, watching closely to see whether the administration will appeal or attempt to circumvent the court’s order.