A judge on Friday struck down one of the Trump administration's attempts to hamstring legal immigration, ruling that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ran afoul of federal law when it instituted an indefinite pause on processing asylum and green card applications submitted by people from certain countries.
"The rule of law has to apply to everyone equally and, as evident here, USCIS has neither 'followed the law' nor 'done things the right way,'" wrote Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. "Indeed, the agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency's actions." Those actions, he said, were "arbitrary and capricious."
