An Obama-appointed federal judge in Rhode Island just threw out a set of President Trump’s immigration policies that paused benefits for nationals of 39 high-risk countries.
US District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr issued a 135-page memorandum and order on June 5, 2026, declaring the challenged USCIS policies unlawful and vacating them.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller responded quickly, warning that lower-court judges are trying to override voters on immigration.
The case is Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island and others v. USCIS and others.
The challenged policies included the Benefits Hold Policy, the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy.
Those policies had paused adjudication of immigration benefit requests for people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries.
The affected benefits included asylum, work permits, green cards, citizenship applications, and other immigration requests.
The court order laid out what USCIS had paused and why McConnell vacated the policies:
More than six months ago, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) enacted a series of policies that threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo. The agency announced that it would be placing an indefinite pause on the adjudication of immigration benefit requests for individuals from thirty-nine African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries.
Since then, individuals from these countries have been categorically barred from receiving final decisions on, among other things, their asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications.
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.
Accordingly, as set forth below, each of the Challenged Policies that USCIS enacted—the Benefits Hold Policy, the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy—are declared unlawful and are vacated and set aside.
McConnell’s order is a sweeping rebuke of the administration’s national-security justification.
But the context matters.
The Gateway Pundit reported that the policies followed the November 26, 2025 shooting near the White House, where Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly ambushed National Guard members.
That attack killed Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and wounded Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, according to the report.
The administration responded by taking a harder look at applicants from countries it considered high risk.
Miller’s argument is straightforward: voters put President Trump back in office to tighten immigration and restore national-security vetting.
A single district judge does not get to erase that mandate from a courtroom in Rhode Island.
His warning to the Supreme Court was blunt.
If the high court does not rein in lower-court judges issuing sweeping orders against Trump administration policy, public faith in the courts will keep deteriorating.
The administration is expected to keep fighting, and this legal battle is far from over.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up. View the original article here.
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