On June 5, 2026, a federal court struck down Trump Administration policies that had frozen immigration benefit applications—including green cards, work permits, and asylum claims—for nationals of 39 countries, finding USCIS lacked the legal authority to impose the indefinite holds.

These policies were adopted in late 2025 after the National Guard shooting in Washington, D.C. One of those policies paused all immigration benefit petitions and applications for people from countries designated in the White House’s travel ban—19 countries at the time the policies were issued, then expanded to 39 countries plus the territory of Palestine in December 2025.

A group of immigrants’ rights organizations and labor unions sued the US government in March 2026. The group filed a motion asking the court to grant judgment declaring that four USCIS policies are unlawful and to issue an order vacating them:

• Global Asylum Hold – this policy paused all asylum decisions regardless of country of origin.
• Benefits Hold – this policy froze the processing of green card, work permit, and citizenship applications for people from the travel ban countries.
• Comprehensive Re-Review – this policy required officers to re-examine previously approved benefit requests for individuals from travel ban countries and consider revocation of those approvals.
• Country-Specific Negative Factor – this policy directed officers to treat an applicant’s country of origin (country of birth or country of citizenship) as a significant negative factor if the country was subject to the travel ban.

All four policies were declared unlawful and vacated (set aside) by the district court’s decision. The court found that USCIS lacked authority to enact these policies and that it acted in an arbitrary manner, finding there was no rational connection between a few isolated criminal incidents and the adjudication of benefits for thousands of unrelated individuals from the travel ban countries. The court also ruled that the “national security” justification for the policies was pretextual and masked anti-immigrant animus on the part of the government.

What happens next?

The June 5, 2026 court decision did not address the underlying travel bans, which remain in effect. Instead, the decision vacates specific USCIS policies affecting immigration benefit requests filed with that agency. Any applications or petitions filed with USCIS that have been paused because of these policies should move forward. In addition, USCIS can no longer consider an applicant’s country of origin as a negative factor when deciding cases that allow for agency discretion.

The government has discretion to appeal this decision and is expected to do so. It could also ask the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to issue a stay of this district court decision while the appeal is litigated. If a stay is granted, USCIS would be permitted to continue enforcing the policies that the district court ruled are unlawful while the appeal is pending.

While a stay of today’s decision by a higher court is possible, this is still a positive development for the nationals of the travel ban countries whose US immigration processes were upended by the 2025 policies. T&S is closely monitoring the situation and is available to advise clients on the best strategies for moving forward with benefit requests affected by these policies.