A federal judge dealt a significant setback to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda on Friday, ruling that a policy effectively blocking asylum applications from dozens of countries violated federal law.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell invalidated the administration’s decision to stop accepting or responding to asylum requests from individuals originating in 39 nations, finding that the policy exceeded the government’s legal authority.

In his ruling, McConnell sharply criticized the actions of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, writing, “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. In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

The judge further argued that the policy had left the futures of “countless immigrants living in the U.S. into an undefined state of legal limbo.”

Reports indicate that the restrictions primarily targeted migrants from countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The policy was introduced after a November incident in which an Afghan migrant allegedly shot and wounded two members of the National Guard in Washington.

In the aftermath of that attack, President Donald Trump announced on social media that he would permanently suspend immigration from all “Third World” countries in order to “allow the American system to fully recover.” Soon afterward, federal agencies halted the processing of asylum claims from 39 countries.

The Department of Homeland Security had not publicly responded to the court ruling as of Friday. According to various reports, the decision could have sweeping implications for hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking either entry into the United States or permission to remain in the country.

{Matzav.com}