BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday invalidated a Trump administration immigration measure implemented following an incident where two National Guard members were shot, which created additional barriers for immigrants from dozens of nations seeking to remain in or enter the United States.
In a decision that severely criticized the administration, U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. stated the measure “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” and he charged the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services with disregarding existing law.
“In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making,” he wrote. “In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The measures put in place following the National Guard shooting incident last year resulted in immigrants from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern nations being “categorically barred” from obtaining final determinations on their asylum, work authorization, green card, and citizenship petitions, among other applications.
“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,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives.”
The measures affect U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes petitions for immigrants seeking work authorization and citizenship. The agency, operating under the Homeland Security Department, frequently approves asylum claims, but only for individuals already present in the United States when filing. Immigration judges handle asylum cases for those detained at the border; the court decision does not impact them, nor do the measures that led to the litigation.
This represents part of a continuing push by the administration to strengthen U.S. entry requirements for travel and immigration, which opponents argue unfairly blocks travel for individuals from numerous nations. The administration indicated it would broaden the limitations following the detention of an Afghan national suspect in the shooting incident involving two National Guard personnel during Thanksgiving weekend.
In its dismissal motion, which the court rejected, the government contended that Congress provided the executive branch extensive authority over immigration matters, including “the entry of aliens into the United States as well as discretion within the statutory scheme to confer as well as withdraw various discretionary benefits.”
“This case rests on a remarkable premise: that a federal court should prevent an agency from issuing the very policy guidance that provides government personnel with the guardrails necessary to ensure consistent, non-arbitrary, and individualized decisionmaking consistent with federal law,” the government wrote in its brief.
Immigration advocacy organizations praised the court’s decision.
“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,” Jamal Abdi, president at the National Iranian American Council, said. “Fortunately, this is still a nation of laws, and those who uphold America’s values have recourse to challenge and push back on such discriminatory, arbitrary policies.”
Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said the ruling was a “significant victory for the rule of law and for thousands of Afghan allies and other immigrants who followed every requirement asked of them.”
“Just this week in Dallas and Fort Worth, we met people who feared losing jobs because delayed work permit renewals threatened their livelihoods, families who postponed education, travel, and homeownership because they did not know when their cases would be resolved, and future Americans who had expected to become citizens only to see their applications stall without explanation,” VanDiver said.
