Judge rules hold on immigrant processing unlawful

A federal judge on Friday ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, to resume processing immigration paperwork for individuals from countries included on a White House travel ban. Last summer, and then again last December, President Donald Trump banned federal immigration officials from giving final approval for individuals from dozens of countries the administration characterized as high-risk to enter the United States. Several refugee and immigrant advocacy groups sued the Trump administration over the travel bans and other policies, challenging the legality of the decision by USCIS to halt processing for thousands of immigrants.

What exactly did the judge say in the decision? U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., said that in discussions of immigration policy, participants often argue that immigrants need to follow the law and do things the right way. In this case, the immigrants affected by USCIS policies were doing exactly that, the judge said. Despite their efforts to follow the law and do what the government told them to do, USCIS was refusing to properly consider their paperwork—a refusal that was arbitrary, unlawful, and capricious, the judge said. 

How has USCIS responded? In a statement to WORLD, James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, characterized the ruling as sabotage dressed in legal clothing. He went on to accuse Judge McConnell of making a politically motivated left-wing attack similar to previous attacks Percival said dated back to 2017. He said those attacks followed the same pattern: claiming that the Trump administration is racist, then claiming the policy in question is itself racist and therefore invalid. Percival went on to accuse left-wing judges of using this pattern with virtually every Trump-era DHS policy.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how USCIS recently mandated that many immigrants in the United States needed to return home in order to apply for green cards.