A US federal court has blocked a series of Trump administration measures that prevented federal officials from granting asylum, green cards and other legal immigration benefits to many immigrants in the US.
In his order on Friday, District Judge John McConnell said that the restrictions on asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications from nationals of 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries were unlawful.
The restrictions were imposed by the Trump administration in late 2025.
The restrictive immigration policies enacted by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” Judge McConnell wrote.
“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 said.
“Over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures,” McConnell said.
USCIS, in imposing the restrictions, was using “pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments,” he said.
The judge in his 135-page opinion noted that it was not his role to rule on “the wisdom of the government’s policy choices” but to determine whether they “comport with the law.”
“The court concludes that they do not,” he wrote.
