U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the District of Rhode Island on Friday vacated a set of Trump administration immigration policies that had effectively frozen processing for asylum seekers and green-card applicants from 39 countries. The 135-page ruling ordered the government to resume adjudications and applications, calling the shutdown unlawful.
The policies affected by the ruling include a global pause on asylum applications filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and a hold on immigration benefits — including permanent residency and citizenship — for nationals of countries included in the administration’s travel ban. McConnell found that the actions placed “the lives of countless individuals on hold — solely by virtue of their countries of birth.”
The administration announced the changes in November after an Afghan man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty. McConnell wrote in his decision 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 judge also directly addressed a common refrain in immigration policy debates. “The court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to ‘follow the law’ and ‘do things the right way,’” McConnell wrote. “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”
Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit that helped represent immigration groups and unions in the lawsuit, praised the outcome. “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,” organization President Skye Perryman said in a statement reported by The New York Times. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers and communities across the country.”
Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, also welcomed the decision. “For months, we have heard from Afghan allies whose citizenship ceremonies were canceled, work permits expired while waiting for decisions, green card applications stopped moving and families were left in uncertainty despite doing everything the right way,” The Hill reported VanDiver said. “Today’s ruling is a significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them, only to see their cases frozen indefinitely.”