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A federal court in Rhode Island issued a 135-page ruling on Friday that declares illegal and overturns four key immigration policies of the Trump administration, paving the way for thousands of immigrants from 39 countries —including Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians— to resume their applications for asylum, permanent residency, and citizenship.
The Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled, in the decision for case No. 26-cv-132-JJM-PAS, that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) acted beyond the authority granted by Congress and that its actions were arbitrary and contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act.
The ruling directly benefits individuals who had pending asylum applications, work permits, permanent resident cards (green cards), naturalization requests, and other immigration benefits, the final approval of which had been indefinitely blocked by USCIS.
The "pause" imposed by the agency did not completely halt the administrative processing of the files, but it did prevent the issuance of an approval, denial, or final closure: cases moved forward internally but remained stuck without resolution.
Judge McConnell was emphatic in his analysis: "The suspension of USCIS adjudications cannot be attributed to anything these individuals have done wrong; it arises solely from the randomness of their place of birth."
The judge also noted that USCIS "claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations it is required to provide; acts without considering the legitimate interests of the applicants; and justifies its actions with pretexts of 'national security' that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is prohibited from allowing to influence its decision-making."
The four annulled policies
The court declared illegal and permanently voided:
- The migration benefits suspension policy (Benefits Hold Policy) for nationals of the 39 countries under the travel ban.
- The global pause on asylum decisions (Global Asylum Hold Policy), applied to all applicants regardless of their nationality.
- The comprehensive re-review of approved benefits for individuals from those countries who entered the United States since January 20, 2021.
- The practice of using the country of origin as a negative factor (Country-Specific Factors Policy) when deciding on immigration applications.
Who benefits
The decision benefits nationals from approximately 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries included in Trump's travel ban.
Among the most affected are Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians, communities that had seen their processes completely halted since the end of 2025.
Since December of that year, the naturalization and citizenship processes for immigrants from those countries were canceled or put on hold, and a bulletin on May 15, 2026, confirmed that work permit renewals were similarly suspended.
A pattern of judicial setbacks
This ruling adds to a series of adverse decisions for the White House concerning immigration matters.
On April 25, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled the Trump administration's asylum policies illegal, noting that they "illegally circumvent the expulsion procedures carefully crafted by Congress."
Two days later, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the resumption of residency application processing for 83 individuals whose cases had been put on hold.
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.
In December 2025, Trump expanded the travel ban to an additional 20 countries, with the stated goal of "further restricting and limiting the entry of foreigners" into the country.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule in June or July 2026 on the case regarding the elimination of citizenship by birth —blocked by multiple court orders since January 2025— along with the cases of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and Syria, which keeps the immigration judicial landscape in a state of flux.
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