A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from freezing work permits, green cards, citizenship applications and other immigration benefits for noncitizens from 39 countries, a ruling that immediately undercuts a policy that had left thousands of people waiting with their lives on hold.
The decision from U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island came after USCIS had treated nationality from one of those countries as a major negative factor in immigration-benefit decisions. For many immigrants, that meant months without work authorization, without legal status and without any meaningful way to plan the next step in their lives.
That is why the ruling was being read so closely on Friday. The affected countries were among those subject to the government’s travel bans, and the judge’s order reached work permits, green cards, citizenship applications and other benefits at once. It also followed a wave of case delays tied to USCIS policies enacted at the end of 2025, after the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national in November.
McConnell said in a 135-page ruling that the immigrants were following the rules but were still unlawfully targeted because of where they came from. He wrote that the change threw countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo and said the court was reminded of the familiar argument that people who want to come to the United States should follow the law and do things the right way. In this case, he said, they did exactly that.
The friction in the case was plain in the judge’s own language. USCIS said its policies were tied to national security concerns, but McConnell said those concerns were pretextual and masked anti-immigrant sentiments. He went further, saying the government was asking the court to shut its eyes to strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus and that doing so would require profound naiveté.
The practical fallout was immediate and personal. Naturalization ceremonies that had been canceled for immigrants on the brink of citizenship will now be rescheduled. The broader picture is larger still: people from Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela and Afghanistan were among those affected, and the ruling covers hundreds of thousands of people who had been stuck in limbo for more than six months.
Jorge Loweree called the decision an enormous victory for hundreds of thousands of people who had been stuck in limbo for a significant period of time, many of whom had lost clarity about whether they would be able to obtain or keep immigration status in the U.S. What USCIS does next will decide how quickly those cases move again, and whether the promise of Friday’s order reaches the people who have already waited too long for an answer.
