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A federal court in the United States ruled this Friday against policies of the Trump administration that had paused asylum and citizenship applications for nationals from 39 countries included in the so-called travel ban, including Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti.
The ruling comes in the context of increasing judicial pressure on the more restrictive immigration measures of Trump's second term, which have faced a series of setbacks in the courts since January 2025.
The Trump administration had kept the allocations of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) frozen for nationals of approximately 39 countries subject to the travel ban, even after the general asylum pause for citizens of countries not included on that list was partially lifted on March 30, 2026.
The document explains that USCIS instructed its officials to pause all asylum and deportation protection applications, regardless of the applicant's nationality, while conducting a comprehensive review; to suspend the immigration proceedings of individuals from the countries affected by the travel ban, preventing final approval or rejection decisions from being issued; and to reevaluate already approved immigration benefits for certain individuals from those countries who had entered the U.S. since January 20, 2021.
The ruling itself clarifies that the "pause" did not completely halt the administrative processing of the applications, but it did block the final adjudication: cases could continue to progress internally, but USCIS could not issue an approval, denial, or definitive closure of the request.
The central conclusion of Judge John McConnell was that these policies were illegal, and for that reason, he overturned them.
McConnell concluded that the policies were illegal and issued a permanent injunction against the Government.
The court declared illegal:
- The policy of suspension of immigration benefits.
- The pause in asylum decisions.
- The mass review of already approved benefits.
- The practice of using the country of origin as a negative factor in immigration application decisions.
The judge held that USCIS acted outside the powers granted by Congress and that the measures were arbitrary and contrary to federal administrative law.
Moreover, it was determined that the policies caused delays and specific harm to the affected migrants.
The ruling orders the end of the freeze on immigration procedures. This decision benefits individuals who had pending asylum applications, work permits, green cards, permanent residency, citizenship, and other immigration benefits, as it determined that USCIS could not indefinitely suspend those adjudications or review granted benefits on a mass scale based on the applicants' country of origin.
Trump's aggressive immigration policy
Since December 2025, the processes of naturalization and citizenship for immigrants from those countries have also been canceled or frozen, and a policy bulletin dated May 15, 2026, confirmed that work permit renewals were similarly suspended for those affected.
The ruling this Friday adds to a series of unfavorable judicial decisions for the White House.
On April 25th, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had already declared Trump's asylum policies illegal, stating that the presidential proclamation and its guidelines "illegally circumvent the carefully crafted expulsion procedures established by Congress" and that they "disregard federal laws that provide individuals the opportunity to apply for and be considered for asylum."
Days earlier, on April 27, a federal judge in Maryland, George L. Russell, ordered the resumption of residency application processing for 83 individuals whose cases had been frozen, declaring the pause applied to those procedures illegal.
The Second Circuit also rejected at the end of April the policy of mandatory detention without bail for migrants in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, marking another judicial setback for the administration's immigration agenda.
Cuba remains under partial restrictions of the travel ban, which affect tourist visas, business visas, and academic or exchange visas. In December 2025, Trump expanded the travel ban to 20 additional countries, with the stated goal of "further restricting and limiting the entry of foreigners" into the country.
In parallel, the executive order from January 20, 2025, seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship remains blocked by multiple court orders, and the Supreme Court is expected to resolve this matter in June or July 2026, along with the cases concerning Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria, for which a decision is also anticipated in July.
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