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WASHINGTON: A US federal court struck down on Friday a major set of the Trump administration’s immigration policies that had paused or severely slowed the processing of green cards, asylum claims, work permits, and citizenship applications for nationals from 39 countries.
Chief judge John J. McConnell Jr of the district court in Rhode Island ruled that the measures unlawfully trapped large numbers of immigrants in prolonged legal uncertainty.
The 135-page ruling determined that the policies exceeded executive authority and violated federal administrative law and that the government’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious”, based on “pretextual concerns of national security”.
In unusually strong language, the judge wrote that the policy had placed immigrants in the United States in “indeterminate legal limbo”.
