Federal judge strikes down Trump administration’s immigration halt on high-risk countries

A federal judge in Rhode Island declared four Trump administration immigration policies unlawful on Friday, vacating rules that had halted legal immigration and asylum processing from 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority, nations officials had flagged for terrorism and security concerns.

Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued the ruling in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island et al v. USCIS, Case No. 1:26-cv-00132. McConnell, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, swept aside four distinct policies the administration had put in place to screen applicants from countries it deemed high-risk.

The decision guts a security framework the Trump administration built after an Afghan national brought to the United States during the Biden-era withdrawal from Afghanistan killed one National Guard member and seriously injured another. The ruling reopens immigration pathways from some of the most unstable and terrorism-prone regions on earth, and it does so on procedural grounds, without addressing the underlying security rationale.

What the judge struck down

McConnell’s order targeted four policies by name: the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Benefits Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy. Together, they formed the administration’s framework for pausing immigration from nations where vetting is difficult or where terrorist organizations operate freely.

Breitbart News reported that the judge declared each policy unlawful and ordered them vacated and set aside. In his ruling, McConnell wrote:

“Each of the Challenged Policies, the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Benefits Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy, are declared unlawful and are hereby VACATED and SET ASIDE.”

The ruling did contain two limits. McConnell denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction. He also denied the government’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims, but did so without prejudice, meaning the administration can refile those arguments.

Still, the practical effect is immediate. The policies are off the books unless an appellate court intervenes.

The countries on the list

The administration’s policy covered 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority. The full roster reads like a catalog of failed states, war zones, and terrorism hotspots: Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Many of these nations lack functioning central governments, maintain no reliable criminal databases, or harbor active terrorist networks. The administration’s argument, that vetting applicants from these countries poses extraordinary challenges, is not theoretical. It is grounded in operational reality that intelligence and law enforcement officials have acknowledged for years.

The Trump administration has separately moved USCIS attorneys to the Justice Department to accelerate denaturalization cases, part of a broader enforcement push that this ruling now complicates on the front end of the immigration pipeline.

The attack that prompted the policy

The Trump administration’s high-risk country framework did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed the case of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who was brought to the United States as part of the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Afghanistan.

In November of last year, Lakanwal killed National Guardsman Sarah Beckstrom and seriously injured National Guardsman Andrew Wolfe. The attack underscored the lethal consequences of admitting individuals from conflict zones without adequate screening, and it gave the administration a concrete, tragic basis for tightening the process.

Beckstrom and Wolfe served their country. Lakanwal was in this country because of a policy decision made during the Afghanistan withdrawal. The Trump administration responded by pausing immigration from countries where vetting gaps are widest. A single federal judge has now told the administration it cannot do that.

A familiar pattern in immigration law

The ruling fits a pattern that conservative legal observers have tracked for years: district judges using procedural objections to block executive immigration policy, regardless of the security stakes. The judge did not rule that the administration’s security concerns were unfounded. He ruled that the policies themselves were unlawful, a distinction that matters legally but offers cold comfort to communities bearing the risk.

The dynamic is not new. A federal judge in Texas once blocked President Obama’s executive immigration program on similar procedural grounds, with U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen finding that the administration had exceeded its authority and failed to follow required procedures. That case involved 26 states challenging Obama’s deportation relief for roughly 4.7 million illegal immigrants.

The difference is instructive. When a judge blocked Obama’s amnesty program, the left howled about judicial overreach. Now that an Obama appointee has blocked Trump’s security-driven immigration pause, the same voices cheer. The principle at work is not procedural consistency, it is which policy outcome the judge prefers.

This latest ruling arrives amid ongoing Supreme Court battles over immigration policy, including fights over birthright citizenship that have drawn direct warnings from the president about the consequences of judicial interference in border enforcement.

The broader enforcement squeeze

Friday’s ruling does not exist in isolation. Federal courts across the country have chipped away at the administration’s immigration enforcement architecture. A New York federal judge recently forced ICE back to Biden-era limits on courthouse immigration arrests, restricting agents’ ability to detain illegal immigrants in one of the few places they reliably appear.

Each ruling narrows the administration’s room to operate. Each one is handed down by a single judge, often an appointee of a prior Democratic president, exercising enormous power over national security policy from a district courtroom far from the border.

Meanwhile, the administration has struggled to secure full funding for the agencies tasked with enforcement. Congress recently passed a bill restoring DHS funding after a 75-day lapse, but ICE and Border Patrol were still left without dedicated money, a funding gap that compounds the operational damage done by court orders like McConnell’s.

What happens next

The administration can appeal McConnell’s ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The denial of the government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice also leaves the door open for the administration to refile on the constitutional claims.

But appeals take time. In the interim, USCIS must resume processing immigration and asylum applications from every country on the list, from Somalia to Syria, from Iran to Afghanistan. The vetting concerns that prompted the policy have not changed. The threat environment has not improved. Only the legal landscape has shifted, and it shifted because one judge said so.

The case name, Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island et al v. USCIS, tells its own story. A nonprofit resettlement organization in Rhode Island successfully challenged a national security policy designed to protect Americans from inadequately vetted arrivals. The plaintiffs won on process. The question of whether the policy was wise, necessary, or justified on the merits was never answered.

Sarah Beckstrom is dead. Andrew Wolfe carries his injuries. And a federal judge just told the government it cannot pause immigration from the country that produced the man who attacked them. That is the state of immigration law in America, where process trumps protection, and the people who pay the price never get a seat at the table.