Punished for Doing Everything Right - An Important Victory in Court Today

A federal judge in Rhode Island strikes down a series of Trump administration immigration measures that brought countless lives to a standstill based solely on country of birth!

So, with a bit of a delay, here is our next article. But courts do slow things down, especially when someone wants something. That is exactly what the following is about, because the one who was slowed down these past days was someone who wanted a great deal, the government of Donald Trump, and the one who stopped him was a federal judge in Rhode Island.

On Friday, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. invalidated an entire series of immigration measures taken by the administration. In a sharp one hundred thirty five page ruling, he wrote that the measures had "brought the lives of countless people to a standstill solely because of their country of birth." The steps, which excluded eligible asylum seekers from the immigration system and denied others temporary work authorization, had made it practically impossible for a large portion of those people to remain in the country. They had been improperly driven by "anti immigration sentiment" and stood in conflict with immigration law.

The measures had been issued by the U.S. immigration agency. They included a worldwide halt to asylum applications submitted through the agency. In addition, the agency suspended decisions on applications filed by people from thirty nine countries, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, that fall under the president's travel ban, thereby cutting off their path to permanent residency, the so called Green Card, and other benefits. These sweeping measures also affected lawful permanent residents who had lived legally in the country for years and yet could not become citizens because decisions on their naturalization applications had come to a halt.

For the administration, this is a serious setback in an effort that has long extended beyond combating unauthorized immigration. It also seeks to narrow legal immigration and pressure people without U.S. passports, including many with valid status, to leave the country. The ruling now forces the administration back to normal procedures and requires it to finally process more than one million stalled applications.

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The department's response was defiant. James Percival, chief counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the immigration agency, blamed "the left" for the ruling and called it "sabotage dressed in legal clothing." "Here's how it works," he wrote. "First, the government is racist. Second, therefore a policy I do not like is motivated by race. Third, therefore it is invalid. They applied this to nearly every Homeland Security policy from the Trump era." He did not say how the administration intends to respond. Until now, defeats in court have usually been met with aggressive responses, rapid appeals, and at times nearly identical replacement measures, dragging out litigation. What is remarkable about Percival's words is this above all: when a court rules against the government, he treats the law itself as sabotage. That says something about how the department views the courts, namely as an obstacle whenever they no longer serve. The disputed measures had been announced in November shortly after authorities stated that an Afghan national had shot two National Guard members in Washington. The man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has pleaded not guilty. The suspension left many immigrants waiting indefinitely for decisions on their applications, unable to work legally and uncertain whether they would be allowed to stay. "More than half a year later, many of these people remain without jobs, without legal status, and without any meaningful ability to plan their futures," McConnell wrote.

The judge, who was appointed by President Obama, wrote that the various suspensions violated immigration laws governing the agency's responsibilities and that the agency had repeatedly applied the law unequally under these measures. He pointed in particular to the harsh claims Trump made last year after the incident in Washington, when he blamed immigrants for a range of social problems, including housing shortages and the "decline of cities." The burden of the changes, the judge wrote, fell hardest on those who had followed every procedure required of them and not on those immigrants who entered unlawfully and whom the administration routinely condemns. "The Court recalls a phrase often repeated in debates over immigration policy," he wrote. "Those who wish to immigrate to the United States should 'follow the law' and 'do things the right way.' This case is a perfect example of immigrants doing exactly that."

This is where the truly intolerable part of this policy lies. The people who were punished were not those the administration blames for everything in its speeches, but those who followed every rule, filled out the forms, paid the fees, submitted to biometric collection, and attended their interviews, only to then wait in nothingness. The demand to obey the law is directed at the wrong people, because here it was the applicants who followed the law and the agency that broke it.

"This ruling reaffirms a simple principle," said Democracy Forward president Skye Perryman. "The federal government may neither shut down lawful pathways to immigration nor discriminate against people based on where they come from. These unlawful measures caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum seekers, and entire communities across the country." The class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by several aid organizations, journalists, and labor unions, including the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island and American Gateways as well as the Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers. They argued that applications filed by thousands of their clients, who rely on institutional assistance to navigate the immigration system, had been stalled indefinitely even though they had completed the required documents, paid the fees, submitted biometric data, and participated in interviews.

McConnell's Friday order also struck down a policy of renewed review. Under it, immigrants from countries on the travel ban list who entered the country after 2021 and had already received approved benefits were subjected to reassessment. The judge rejected the administration's argument that national security justified re interviewing those individuals or using "country specific facts and circumstances" against them. "The rule of law must apply equally to everyone," he wrote, "and as shown here, the immigration agency neither 'followed the law' nor 'did things the right way.'" This is not the only case of its kind. In other proceedings, courts found that the administration unlawfully withheld visas from people from countries on the travel ban list. Trump himself described the travel ban in December as "a permanent suspension of immigration from the Third World." Additional lawsuits are pending in New York and the District of Columbia challenging the suspension of visas for people from seventy five countries.

What remains is the thought with which this report began. Courts slow things down, especially when someone wants something. But that is not a flaw. It is their job. Here they stopped a government that wanted to break the law, and a government that calls the law sabotage in the same breath deserves to be reminded of exactly that. The rule of law binds not only the weak standing at the door but also the powerful who decide who passes through it. Anyone who demands that others do things the right way must first measure themselves by that same demand.

It is worth fighting, investigating, supporting, and bringing into the light what was meant to remain hidden. Everyone held on and in the end was proven right, and those who refuse to leave the path despite all obstacles will eventually see the door open. That is why this article closes with one conviction: "We stand by it."