President Donald Trump’s administration illegally prevented applicants from 39 countries subject to travel restrictions from receiving decisions about asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship, a U.S. federal judge ruled Friday.
Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, ruled that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) adopted a series of illegal policies targeting people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.
The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed in March by a coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions, challenging a set of policies adopted starting in November by USCIS, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
These measures suspended the processing of applications for immigration benefits from people in the 39 countries subject to Trump’s full or partial travel restrictions, which he justified based on security criteria and background checks. The green card grants permanent resident status to foreigners.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, McConnell said these policies “have thrown the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo.”
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‘USCIS’ withholding of decisions cannot be attributed to anything wrong these individuals did; rather, it arises solely from the chance of its birth,’ the judge wrote.
According to him, the immigrants in question complied with the legal processes established by Congress and adopted by USCIS through regulation, but even so they were ‘stuck, waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to analyze’.
‘But the Rule of Law must apply to everyone equally, and as is evident here, USCIS has not ‘abided by the law’ nor ‘acted in the right way,’ McConnell wrote.
“In fact, the service violated the very immigration laws that Congress assigned it to administer, as well as the administrative laws governing the service’s actions.”
