Federal Court Blocks Sweeping Pause on Legal Immigration for Nationals of 39 Countries
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick for the American Immigration Council reports on more immigration action in the federal courts.
Late last year, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suspended the processing of immigration benefits for nationals of 39 different countries. That suspension was supposedly in response to a tragic shooting of two members of the National Guard that occurred in Washington D.C. "USCIS shunted thousands of applications to a filing cabinet where they sit, untouched — even though each applicant paid a substantial fee for the government to decide their case."
A federal judge has ruled that this policy is unlawful. The judge also struck down three related policies, two of which were also aimed at people who come from one of the 39 nations that President Trump has targeted with a ban on entry, and a third which imposed a blanket halt on asylum decisions at USCIS.
The decision requires USCIS to begin processing hundreds of thousands of suspended applications.
