US judge strikes down Trump policies targeting immigrants from 39 countries

Chief US district judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island,struck downa slate of policies that the US citizenship and immigration services (USCIS) had adopted that he said left people from dozens of African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries in “indeterminate legal limbo”. He said the immigrants had adhered to the legal processes that Congress had enacted and USCIS had adopted by regulation yet had been “stuck waiting for months on end for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate”. The judge, who was appointed by Democratic former president Barack Obama, said it adopted the policies without statutory and regulatory authority and based on “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making”.

“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,” he wrote. The ruling marked a victory for a coalition of immigrant service organisations and labour unions that in March sued to challenge policies adopted by USCIS, which is part of the US department of homeland security (DHS). “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, the head of the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The man,Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has pleaded not guilty.