Judge Throws Out Trump's Halt to Immigration Processing

A Trump administration effort to effectively hit pause on swaths of the legal immigration system was tossed out Friday by a federal judge in Rhode Island. In a 135-page ruling, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ordered US Citizenship and Immigration Services to resume processing asylum and immigration applications that had been frozen, saying the policies left many immigrants in "indeterminate legal limbo" and were influenced by "anti-immigrant sentiments" that the agency was not allowed to consider. Democracy Forward, which represented immigration groups and unions in the case, called the ruling a reaffirmation that the government cannot "shut down lawful immigration pathways," the New York Times reports.

The measures challenged included a blanket hold on asylum cases before USCIS and a halt on applications from people in 39 countries covered by the administration's travel ban, blocking green cards, citizenship, and work permits. McConnell said the burden fell most heavily on those who had complied with the law, noting that many have spent more than six months without work authorization or clarity on their status. The judge found the holds violated federal immigration statutes and were applied unevenly. "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," the judge wrote, per the Hill.