Judge says Trump admin illegally paused immigration benefits due to 'anti-immigrant animus'

A federal judge said the Trump administration unlawfully paused immigration benefits for "countless" people living in the U.S. from dozens of countries following the shooting of two National Guard members, putting their lives in "indeterminate legal limbo."

In the scathing ruling Friday, Judge John J. McConnell, of Rhode Island, said the court could not "shut its eyes" to the "strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus" before it.

“The Government effectively invites the Court to shut its eyes and ignore the strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus before it. Doing so would require profound naiveté on the Court’s part. Unfortunately for the Government, that is an invitation that this Court will have to decline,” McConnell wrote.

McConnell vacated four policies that paused asylum requests globally and imposed severe restrictions on requests for asylum, work permits, citizenship and other processes for migrants from dozens of countries.

The judge said that the administration extrapolated the alleged acts of one Afghan individual, the gunman in the National Guard case, "to the entire population of Afghanistan, as well as individuals from thirty-eight other countries" and described these immigrants in derogatory ways.

"Their outright disdain for individuals from Travel Ban Countries seems to suggest that, in enacting the Challenged Policies, USCIS personnel seemed less concerned with matters of “national security” and more so focused on targeting groups of people that their leaders told them they “DON’T WANT” in the United States, “NOT ONE,” McConnell wrote.

The decision was applauded by immigration advocacy group American Gateways, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

"We appreciate the court’s decision vacating the unlawful and xenophobic policies that placed people and families seeking safety, dignity, hope, and opportunity in indefinite limbo," said Edna Yang, co-executive director of the organization. "This ruling reinforces the integrity of our nation’s immigration system."

But Department of Homeland Security general counsel James Percival panned the ruling and the claim of "animus."

“The Left has been running the same gambit with so called ‘animus’ claims since 2017. It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing. It goes like this: (1) the admin is racist, (2) therefore a policy I don’t like is motivated by race, (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump era Department of Homeland Security policy,” the statement said.

In November, an Afghan national who had worked with the CIA and was previously granted asylum traveled to Washington D.C., and allegedly shot two National Guard members, fatally striking U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, and severely injured another, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe.

In the wake of the shooting, the Trump administration imposed several policies that:

• Paused all asylum requests regardless of a person’s country of origin.
• Halted adjudication for all benefits for people from 39 “high risk” countries.
• Ordered the government to reconsider past decisions that granted immigration benefits to people from those countries.
• Required USCIS personnel to treat a person’s country of origin as a “significant negative factor” if they come from those countries

“In ruling on these motions, the Court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to 'follow the law' and 'do things the right way.' This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that,” Judge McConnell wrote.

McConnell added that USCIS, the agency that oversees decisions of all immigration benefits, justified the polices “with pre textual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

In the searing 135-page opinion, Judge McConnell said the government’s decision had left many of those immigrants without legal status and work authorization not because they did anything wrong, but “solely by the happenstance of their birth.”