Judge rejects Trump administration pause on immigration applications

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday determined that President Trump’s halt on processing immigration applications for citizens of countries listed under his travel ban, granting an injunction on a policy she determined was unfairly leaving thousands in limbo. U.S. District Court Judge Julia Kobick, an appointee of former President Biden, tore into a number of Trump policies enacted after an Afghan man attacked two National Guard officers in Washington, D.C. last year, killing one, as well as a thwarted terror attack. Trump took a number of actions in the wake of the shooting, including new limits on seeking asylum and pausing all immigration applications, including those to gain a green card or become a citizen. “These are thin reeds on which to rest an assertion of reasoned decisionmaking. With respect to the criminal acts planned or committed by Afghan nationals, the government makes no argument as to how two serious, but isolated, violent crimes planned by two people from one country is rationally connected with a policy stopping adjudication of benefit applications by people from 39 different countries, as well as applications for asylum by people from every country in the world,” Kobick wrote in the decision. “There is no indication that [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] USCIS meaningfully considered the consequences of throwing thousands of benefit applicants into indefinite limbo and perpetual uncertainty about whether they will be granted asylum, become a United States citizen, receive work authorization, or obtain a green card,” she added. The judge also found the policy to be broadly discriminatory, as the Trump administration failed to demonstrate “a reasoned basis for concern about public safety or national security risks by individuals from the 39 identified countries living in the United States today.”