{"id":258232,"date":"2026-06-07T15:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T15:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258232\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T15:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T15:25:19","slug":"an-uncertain-win-for-immigrants-seeking-to-stay-in-u-s-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258232\/","title":{"rendered":"An Uncertain Win for Immigrants Seeking to Stay in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

A day after a federal judge struck down Trump administration policies<\/a> that had frozen applications for many immigrants seeking to stay in the country, there was renewed hope that a six-month logjam might be easing.<\/p>\n

There are more than a million backlogged applications for citizenship, green cards, work permits and asylum. When those applications would move forward, however, was uncertain.<\/p>\n

In a strongly worded opinion on Friday, the judge, John J. McConnell Jr., wrote that the policies enacted by the Trump administration had effectively made it challenging for many immigrants to stay in the United States.<\/p>\n

The policies, which were enacted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the legal immigration system and processes paperwork for immigrants already in the country, put a hold on asylum applications. The agency also paused decisions on applications filed by immigrants from 39 countries<\/a> under a travel ban, many of them in Africa and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen U.S.C.I.S. first enacted the policies at the center of this litigation, the agency did not simply place a hold on adjudications,\u201d Judge McConnell wrote. \u201cMore fundamentally, the challenged policies placed the lives of countless individuals on hold \u2014 solely by virtue of their countries of birth. Over six months later, many of those individuals remain without work, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan for their futures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling was a victory for labor groups that had filed a lawsuit in March against the federal government over the policies. Among those groups was American Gateways, a nonprofit that provides legal services for immigrants.<\/p>\n

Edna Yang, a co-executive director of American Gateways, said in a statement that the ruling \u201creinforces the integrity of our nation\u2019s immigration system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows people who have spent decades waiting for the legal system to work as promised to have certainty and a path forward for hard-fought permanent status and family reunification,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is important that no administration excludes people based solely on their country of origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said that this decision could allow those with immigration cases to move their applications forward.<\/p>\n

But the relief may be short-lived. While it was unclear immediately after the ruling how the Trump administration planned to respond, it was expected that the judge\u2019s order would be appealed.<\/p>\n

The White House referred questions about the decision to the U.S.C.I.S.<\/p>\n

James Percival, the general counsel for the Homeland Security Department, the parent agency of U.S.C.I.S., said in an emailed statement on Saturday that the ruling was \u201csabotage dressed in legal clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Chishti said the statement by Mr. Percival signaled the Trump administration would push back on the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not the end of this,\u201d Mr. Chishti said, \u201cand this case is definitely headed to the Supreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was unclear how soon Citizenship and Immigration Services would restart processing applications that had been affected.<\/p>\n

Kevin Love Hubbard, a lawyer with the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Rhode Island, said that barring an appeal, U.S.C.I.S. could no longer rely on the policies enacted by the federal government to refuse processing cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the decision is obviously new and complex, and it will take some time to filter down through the administrative system to individual people\u2019s applications,\u201d Mr. Hubbard said. \u201cThe hope and expectation is that, unless there is a different decision on appeal, that U.S.C.I.S. will start processing these applications for people who were illegally put in indefinite limbo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policies that prompted the lawsuit were announced in November after officials said an Afghan national had shot two National Guard members in Washington.<\/p>\n

Mr. Chishti said that if the case was further litigated, one key question would be whether blanket policies that affect people from certain countries could be put in place in the interest of national security.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational security concerns are valid \u2014 no one can dispute that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t merit a blanket ban on all applicants from those countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policies that were overturned by the court had blocked people from the 39 travel ban countries from receiving final decisions on completed asylum applications, and from receiving green cards through the adjustment of status process, which allows immigrants already in the country to apply for a green card without returning to their native land. It also blocked them from receiving status through employment authorization documents or becoming naturalized citizens.<\/p>\n

In 2024, about 240,000 people from those 39 countries received green cards through the adjustment of status process, and about 840,000 became naturalized citizens. In fiscal year 2023, about 22,000 were granted asylum. The countries with the most people to receive green cards or to be naturalized were Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Haiti.<\/p>\n

Jorge Loweree, the managing director of programs at the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization for immigrants, said that even before the policies had been enacted by the federal government, asylum cases were being processed slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fair to anticipate that the administration isn\u2019t going to do something like prioritize asylum adjudications because of this decision,\u201d Mr. Loweree said. \u201cBut it should certainly open the door to having many more cases that move than have in the last six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

By putting applications on hold, Mr. Hubbard said, the federal government was creating challenges for immigrants who had been trying to follow the proper legal process toward green cards or U.S. citizenship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about people who tried to follow the process and still are being stymied,\u201d Mr. Hubbard said. <\/p>\n

Albert Sun contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day after a federal judge struck down Trump administration policies that had frozen applications for many immigrants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[29528,128,78415,52336,17075,17074,14011,11598,9204,100638,17082,9,24,63,78414,129,131,130,1876],"class_list":["post-258232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-asylum","tag-bronx","tag-citizenship-and-immigration-services-us","tag-citizenship-and-naturalization","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-federal-courts-us","tag-foreign-workers","tag-homeland-security-department","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-john-james-jr-1958","tag-mcconnell","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-right-of","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}