A federal judge has struck down a policy enacted by the United States President Donald Trump’s administration after the shooting of two National Guard members that made it harder for immigrants from dozens of countries to stay and enter the US.

Immigrants from Nigeria and 38 other African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries will benefit from this judgment as they are now eligible to receive final decisions on, among other things, their asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications.

Countries facing partial restrictions include: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Cuba, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Countries facing total restrictions include: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

In a ruling harshly criticising the administration, US District Chief Judge, John McConnell Jr. said the policy “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” and he accused the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of ignoring the law.

“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,” he wrote.

“In legal terms, that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

The policies enacted after the National Guard shooting last year meant that immigrants from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries have been “categorically barred” from receiving final decisions on, among other things, their asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said President and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs in the case, Skye Perryman.

“These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives.”

The policies apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, which approves applications for immigrants to work and become citizens. The agency, which is within the Homeland Security Department, often grants asylum, but only for those already in the United States when they apply. Immigration judges grant asylum to those stopped at the border; the ruling does not affect them, nor do the policies that sparked the lawsuit.

In its motion to dismiss, which the court denied, the government argued that Congress gave the executive branch broad authority over immigration policy, including “the entry of aliens into the United States as well as discretion within the statutory scheme to confer as well as withdraw various discretionary benefits.”

“This case rests on a remarkable premise: that a federal court should prevent an agency from issuing the very policy guidance that provides government personnel with the guardrails necessary to ensure consistent, non-arbitrary, and individualised decision-making consistent with federal law,” the government wrote in its brief.

“This ruling sets a powerful precedent that the administration cannot ignore the law as laid down by Congress and cannot arbitrarily bar immigration benefits based on national origin by fiat,” Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said. “Fortunately, this is still a nation of laws, and those who uphold America’s values have recourse to challenge and push back on such discriminatory, arbitrary policies.” (THISDAY)

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