Federal Court Strikes Down USCIS Immigration Freeze for 39 Countries

On June 5, 2026, a federal judge in Rhode Island struck down a sweeping set of administration policies that had frozen immigration benefits—including green cards, work permits, and asylum claims—for nationals of 39 countries. The ruling by Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island effectively ends a months-long administrative limbo for thousands of applicants whose paperwork had been indefinitely paused. In a comprehensive decision, the court vacated four specific U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) directives, declaring them unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The decision marks a significant judicial rebuke of the administration's aggressive use of internal agency memos to halt legal immigration processes.[1][2][5]

The policies in question were enacted in late 2025, following a fatal shooting in Washington, D.C., where an Afghan national opened fire on two National Guard members, killing one and injuring another. In the wake of the attack, the administration announced a permanent pause on migration from specific nations to allow the U.S. vetting system to fully recover. This executive action expanded existing travel restrictions to 39 nations, heavily targeting African countries while also including Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, and Palestine. While the presidential proclamation restricted new entries into the United States, the subsequent internal USCIS policies went much further, halting the processing of paperwork for immigrants already inside the country and navigating the legal system.[2][3]

To enforce the administration's directive, USCIS quietly implemented four distinct operational holds. The "Benefits Hold Policy" placed an indefinite freeze on all immigration benefit requests—including adjustments of status, employment authorization documents, and naturalization applications—filed by individuals from the 39 targeted countries. Even more broadly, the agency instituted a "Global Asylum Hold," which halted the adjudication of all asylum and withholding of removal applications worldwide, regardless of the applicant's country of origin. This global pause immediately created a massive bottleneck in an already strained asylum system, leaving vulnerable populations without a clear path forward or the ability to legally work while their claims were pending.[1][5]

The agency did not stop at pausing new or pending applications. A third directive, the "Comprehensive Re-Review Policy," required USCIS officers to re-examine and reconsider already approved benefit requests for any individual from a travel ban country who had entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021. Finally, a fourth policy instructed adjudicators to treat an applicant's country of origin as a significant negative factor when making discretionary decisions. Together, these four directives effectively paralyzed the legal immigration apparatus for hundreds of thousands of people, prompting a coalition of labor unions and immigrant advocacy groups—including the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, the UAW, and the Refugee Dream Center—to sue the federal government in March 2026.[2][5][6]

In his sweeping decision, Judge McConnell agreed with the plaintiffs that USCIS had vastly exceeded its statutory authority. The court found no rational connection between the isolated criminal acts of one individual in Washington, D.C., and the blanket suspension of benefits for thousands of unrelated immigrants who had complied with all U.S. laws. McConnell ruled that the agency failed to provide the reasoned explanation required by the APA and completely ignored the reliance interests of applicants who had paid fees and followed the legal process. Crucially, the court took direct aim at the government's core defense, characterizing the administration's national security justifications as "pretextual" and stating that the policies masked underlying anti-immigrant animus rather than addressing genuine vulnerabilities in the vetting process.[2][4][6]

Conservative commentators and administration allies sharply criticized the ruling, arguing that the executive branch requires broad, unquestioned latitude to pause immigration processing when national security threats emerge. From this perspective, the deadly attack on military personnel by a foreign national exposed fatal flaws in the immigration vetting system, necessitating a complete operational freeze until those vulnerabilities could be identified and sealed. Supporters of the policies maintain that the mandate to protect the homeland supersedes the administrative inconveniences faced by benefit applicants, and they view the Rhode Island court's decision as an example of judicial overreach interfering with core executive branch national security functions.[3]

Legal experts emphasize that the remedy granted in this case—a complete vacatur of the policies—is unusually broad and highly consequential. Unlike preliminary injunctions, which courts often limit to protecting only the specific named plaintiffs in a lawsuit, vacating the policies under the APA means the rules are entirely set aside on a nationwide basis. Because the court found the policies fundamentally unlawful, they are stripped from the books entirely, meaning USCIS can no longer rely on them to delay any applicant's paperwork, regardless of whether that applicant was involved in the litigation.[5]

Despite the sweeping nature of the victory for immigrant advocates, the ruling does not strike down the underlying presidential travel bans that restrict new entries into the United States. Those executive orders remain in effect. Instead, the decision strictly targets the internal USCIS mechanisms that froze the processing of benefits for people already interacting with the domestic immigration system. With the policies vacated, USCIS is legally required to immediately resume processing the backlogged applications. However, the Justice Department is widely expected to appeal the decision to the First Circuit Court of Appeals and will likely seek an emergency stay to keep the adjudication holds in place while the litigation continues.[1][4][5]