Washington, June 7: A US court has struck down President Donald Trump’s policy that imposed various restrictions on immigrants from 39 countries. Under the policy, citizens of those countries were barred from receiving decisions on applications for asylum, work permits, permanent residency permits (green cards), and citizenship.
Chief US District Judge John McConnell of Providence, Rhode Island, invalidated the policies implemented by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Judge McConnell said the measures had forced people from dozens of countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East into prolonged legal uncertainty.
Criticising the policy, he noted that the affected immigrants had fully complied with the legal procedures established by Congress. He also said USCIS had disregarded the law in implementing the measures.
According to the ruling, USCIS enforced the policies without clear statutory or regulatory authority and based them on an anti-immigration approach adopted by the Trump administration.
The decision is being viewed as a major victory for a coalition of immigrant rights groups and labour organisations, which filed a lawsuit against the policy in March this year.
USCIS had introduced the measures as part of the Trump administration’s broader immigration enforcement campaign.
The policy followed an incident in November last year in Washington, DC, in which an Afghan immigrant allegedly shot two members of the National Guard. In response, Trump said on social media that he would permanently block people from so-called “Third World” countries as part of efforts to overhaul the US immigration system.
He later expanded the list of countries subject to full or partial travel restrictions to 39. The countries included Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, Somalia, Venezuela, and Syria.
Judge McConnell said the policies, which were based on a person’s country of birth, had profoundly affected the lives of countless individuals.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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