Federal Judge John McConnell Strikes Down Trump Administration Immigration Curbs for 39 Countries

A federal judge struck down sweeping Trump administration restrictions that barred people from 39 countries from receiving final decisions on asylum cases, green cards, work approval and citizenship applications, after the policies were imposed in November 2025.

District Judge John McConnell said the measures effectively barred citizens from 39 countries from receiving final decisions and condemned the policy as leaving lives in “indeterminate legal limbo,” while the ruling described USCIS’s hold on adjudications as arising “solely by the happenstance of their birth.”

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The restrictions were tied to the Washington, DC shooting of two National Guard members, and the New York Times reported that the court decision forced the government to return to the normal adjudication process and begin resolving more than a million backlogged applications.

The New York Times also said the policies were enacted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and included a global hold on asylum applications filed with the agency, alongside pauses on immigration applications from people from the 39 countries that halted their ability to obtain green cards and other benefits.

In Providence, Rhode Island, Chief District Judge John McConnell Jr. ruled that the policies left applicants from dozens of countries “stuck waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate,” according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

In the ruling, McConnell said the policy “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” and he criticized USCIS for using “pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments.”

James Percival, general counsel for the Homeland Security Department, blamed the decision on “the left” for “sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” arguing in an emailed statement that the logic behind the ruling was invalid.

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Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said the ruling “reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” while the CBS News account said McConnell found the limits “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to federal law.”

The Seattle Times quoted U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. saying USCIS’s actions were contrary to law and “arbitrary and capricious,” and it also quoted Democracy Forward’s Perryman describing “enormous harm” to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities left in limbo.

The same Seattle Times report included Jamal Abdi, president at the National Iranian American Council, saying “This ruling sets 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.”

The decision invalidated policies that had halted asylum adjudications and froze immigration and citizenship applications, work permits, and green cards for immigrants from 39 countries, and it applied to pending cases at USCIS involving people from the travel ban countries, not just those included in the lawsuit.

“An American federal judge ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally by prohibiting applicants from 39 countries affected by the travel ban from receiving decisions on their asylum applications, work permit applications, green cards, and citizenship applications”

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The Boston Globe said the judge’s 135-page opinion described the policies as leaving people in “indeterminate legal limbo,” solely because of nationality, while the Associated Press account in the Seattle Times said the ruling would impact all pending USCIS cases involving people from the travel ban countries.

The ruling also centered on USCIS’s treatment of applicants who, the CBS News account said, “filed the appropriate paperwork, paid the required filing fees, submitted to the requested biometrics collections, and attended the necessary in person interviews.”

The Independent reported that McConnell vacated a policy that indefinitely suspended all asylum claims as well as a “benefits hold” that froze all immigration applications from people impacted by the Trump administration’s so-called “travel ban,” and it said the court struck down additional policies requiring officials to revisit previously approved benefits and to consider “country-specific factors.”

As the legal fight continued, the New York Times said the administration had generally reacted aggressively to setbacks by quickly appealing and sometimes enacting “nearly identical substitute measures,” prolonging litigation even as the court order required a return to normal adjudication for more than a million backlogged applications.