U.S. federal judge John McConnell on Friday overturned a series of decisions made by the Trump administration as part of its tightening of immigration policy. The judge ruled that the decision not to accept or respond to asylum seekers' applications from 39 countries was unlawful.
In the ruling, McConnell wrote, "In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of 'national security' that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making. In legal terms that means USCIS's actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious."
He added that the policy had thrust the lives of "countless immigrants living in the U.S. into an undefined state of legal limbo.
According to reports, the policy mainly applied to migrants from countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The decision followed an incident last November in which an Afghan migrant shot two members of the National Guard in Washington.
Following the incident, President Donald Trump announced on social media that he had decided to permanently halt immigration from all "Third World" countries in order to "allow the American system to fully recover." Shortly thereafter, the administration ordered a halt to processing asylum applications from 39 countries.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not yet responded to the ruling. According to reports, the decision could affect hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to enter or remain in the United States.