On June 5, 2026, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a sweeping decision declaring four USCIS policies unlawful and vacating them nationwide. The policies had frozen asylum, green card, work permit, and naturalization decisions for applicants from thirty-nine countries, and had paused affirmative asylum adjudications for everyone, regardless of nationality. This is binding relief that affects all pending USCIS adjudications—not just those of the named plaintiffs. If you represent clients from affected countries or with frozen asylum applications, this ruling directly reshapes your case strategy immediately.
What changed
In Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, Chief Judge McConnell held that USCIS’s Trump-era “Travel Ban Countries” policies violated both the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). He found that the agency had thrown “the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo” by placing an indefinite pause on the adjudication of immigration benefit requests for individuals from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries and by re-opening already approved benefits, based solely on applicants’ countries of birth. Each of the four policies at issue was declared unlawful, vacated, and set aside.
The four policies vacated were:
- A policy that paused adjudications of many immigration benefits for nationals of designated countries.
- A policy that directed personnel to place a hold on asylum and withholding-of-removal adjudications while conducting broader reviews, which the court found inconsistent with governing immigration law and administrative requirements.
- A policy that directed officers to re-review previously approved benefit requests involving nationals of covered countries who entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021, which created uncertainty for individuals who had already received approvals and believed their cases had been resolved, and which the court found USCIS lacked authority to implement.
- A revision to the USCIS Policy Manual that instructed adjudicators to consider country-specific concerns associated with travel-ban countries as significant negative discretionary factors, which the court found unlawful.
Why it matters
Unlike the earlier preliminary injunction wins in other districts, which have generally limited relief to the named plaintiffs in those cases, the remedy here is vacatur of the underlying policies themselves. That carries far broader effect.
This is not a preliminary ruling affecting only certain clients. Until further court action occurs, the district court has vacated the four challenged USCIS policies. That means:
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Frozen benefit applications must resume processing. Applicants from the 39 affected countries who have been waiting for USCIS decisions on green cards, work permits, naturalization, and asylum must have their cases adjudicated on the merits. The practical result was that applicants who had filed properly, paid their fees, completed biometrics, and attended interviews were left waiting for months with no decision, and in many cases lost work authorization, jobs, and legal status while their cases sat frozen.
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Re-reviews initiated under the old policy must be abandoned. If USCIS had ordered a re-review of an already-approved benefit for a client based on their country of origin and entry date after January 20, 2021, that re-review order is now invalid.
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Discretionary decisions can no longer treat country of origin as a negative factor. The Policy Manual guidance directing adjudicators to treat a Travel Ban Country origin as a “significant negative” factor in benefits decisions is void.
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The rationale survives appellate scrutiny for now. Applying Department of Commerce v. New York (the census case), the court concluded that “the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation” the agency gave. A month after freezing benefits as an “operational necessity” to protect national security, USCIS issued exemptions for athletes participating in the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. The court wrote that USCIS justified its actions “with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”
Important limitations: The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction, reasoning that vacatur and declaratory relief are sufficient — but that leaves less of a contempt hammer if the agency drags its feet, and compliance will need to be watched. And the court did not reach the plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment due process and equal protection claims, which remain available if the litigation continues. The ruling also does not touch the travel ban proclamations themselves: entry restrictions for people abroad remain in place, and nothing in Dorcas affects cases in immigration court, which are run by EOIR, not USCIS.
Way forward
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Audit all frozen cases immediately. If you represent clients from any of the 39 covered countries with pending asylum, green card, work permit, visa, or naturalization applications, prepare to contact USCIS to confirm the freeze has lifted. Document the date your client’s case was frozen and prepare to request expedited adjudication based on the months-long delay.
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Withdraw or challenge any pending re-review requests. If USCIS has initiated or threatened a re-review of an approved benefit based on the client’s country of origin, file correspondence with USCIS pointing to the vacatur and asking for immediate closure of the re-review without changes to the approval.
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Preserve appellate arguments. Expect the government to appeal to the First Circuit and likely seek a stay. Until a stay issues — if one ever does — the vacatur is effective now. Do not assume the vacatur is final. If a stay is granted, practices will shift again. Maintain a file of communications showing you acted on the June 5 ruling.
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Monitor agency guidance. USCIS may issue a policy memo or alert addressing how to resume adjudications on held cases. Watch for it and incorporate it into your case management.
Disclaimer
This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It is provided by a software company, not a law firm. Consult a licensed immigration attorney to discuss your specific situation.
Immigration policy and court precedent can change without notice. The government may seek and obtain a stay, appeal this decision, or pursue other remedies. The ruling is binding unless stayed or reversed on appeal, but you should verify the current status and applicability to your client’s case by consulting the source document linked above and your own legal counsel.