A federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s policy that barred applicants from the 39 countries on the president’s travel ban list.

The policy, put in place after the shooting of two National Guard members in the nation’s capital last year, kept applications for work permits, asylum, green cards and citizenship in limbo for six months.

Those who were already in the U.S. were then unable to work and at risk of deportation, while those outside the U.S. faced significantly more hurdles to enter.

U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. determined that the deadlock was unlawful, finding that the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, responsible for processing immigration and naturalization applications, could not pause the application process solely based on people’s country of origin.

“In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ’national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making,” Judge McConnell, an Obama appointee, wrote in his lengthy order. “In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

He said the agency has neither “followed the law”’ nor “done things the right way.”

“USCIS’s hold on adjudications cannot be attributed to anything that these individuals did wrong; rather, it arises solely by the happenstance of their birth,” he wrote.

Because of this, applicants had been “stuck waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate,” throwing “the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo,” the judge wrote.

“The Court is reminded of a line often repeated in discussions around immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they ought to ’follow the law’ and ’do things the right way,’” he wrote. “This case serves as a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”

The Washington Times requested a response from the White House.

The policy at hand came after an Afghan national was alleged to have shot two National Guard members, killing one and critically injuring the other. Hence, African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries were deemed too risky for national security by the administration.

The ruling came as a result of a March lawsuit filed by a coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions challenging the administration’s deportation and immigration policies.

“This ruling reaffirms a basic principle: the federal government cannot shut down lawful immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on where they come from,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. “These unlawful policies caused enormous harm to families, workers, asylum-seekers, and communities across the country who were left in limbo, unable to work, access protections, or move forward with their lives.”

Judge McConnell used his ruling to leave a scathing review of President Trump and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments following the shooting, citing the president’s post claiming that “this refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America” and Ms. Noem describing immigrants as “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

“It is impossible to ignore the backdrop against which the Challenged Policies were implemented,” the judge wrote. “Both the President and former Secretary’s statements came in the direct aftermath of the 2025 Washington, D.C. Shooting. Indeed, they seem to attribute the alleged act of a single individual of Afghan descent to the entire population of Afghanistan, as well as individuals from thirty-eight other countries.”