US judge strikes down Trump policies targeting immigrants from 39 countries
President Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully barred applicants from 39 travel-ban countries from receiving decisions on asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship, a US federal judge ruled on Friday.
Chief US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, ruled that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services had adopted a series of unlawful policies targeting people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.
His ruling came in a lawsuit filed in March by a coalition of immigrant service organisations and labour unions challenging a suite of policies adopted starting in November by USCIS, which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security.
Those measures placed a hold on processing immigration benefit applications from people in the 39 countries subject to Trump’s full or partial travel bans, which he has justified on vetting and security grounds. Green cards grant foreign nationals permanent resident status.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McConnell, who was appointed by Democratic US President Barack Obama, said those policies “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo”.