A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration immigration policy that tightened requirements for immigrants from dozens of countries seeking to enter or remain in the United States.
District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. invalidated the policy in a sharply worded ruling, accusing US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of exceeding its legal authority and failing to follow required administrative procedures.
The policy was enacted following the shooting of two National Guard members and affected immigrants from 39 countries.
In his ruling, McConnell argued that the administration’s actions left immigrants facing uncertainty about their legal status and failed to comply with federal law. The judge wrote that the policy “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo.”
McConnell further accused USCIS of acting outside its authority and failing to provide adequate justification for the policy.
The judge detailed that in enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS claims statutory and regulatory authority it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of “national security” that mask anti-immigrant sentiments forbidden from influencing its decision-making.
“In legal terms, that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious,” McConnell stated.
The Trump administration has consistently argued that stronger vetting procedures and tighter immigration controls are necessary to protect Americans and ensure immigration laws are properly enforced.
Administration officials quickly pushed back on McConnell’s conclusion that the policy was motivated by anti-immigrant bias. James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, criticized the ruling in a statement, arguing that similar allegations have been repeatedly used against Trump-era immigration policies.
“The Left has been running the same gambit with so-called ‘animus’ claims since 2017,” Percival said. “It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing. It goes like this: (1) the administration is racist; (2) therefore a policy I don’t like is motivated by race; (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump-era Department of Homeland Security policy.”
