Federal Court Strikes Down USCIS Immigration Freeze for 39 Countries

Federal Court Strikes Down USCIS Immigration Freeze for 39 Countries: What It Means for Your Case

You did everything right. You filed the forms. You paid the fees. You showed up for biometrics. You went to the interview. And then you waited. And waited. And heard nothing.

If you have been searching “why is USCIS not processing my green card” or “what happened to my work permit renewal” or “can USCIS just freeze my case forever,” this video is the answer you have been looking for.

For nationals of 39 countries caught in the Trump administration travel ban, that silence was not a processing delay. It was a deliberate, agency-wide freeze. A policy. One that left thousands of legally compliant applicants in limbo for over six months with no explanation and no recourse.

This week, a federal court ruled that policy unlawful.

This breaking development was identified by Judith Mursalin, Head of Casework and Compliance at the Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram, whose role is to monitor U.S. immigration courts so that clients never miss what matters. Attorney Chris Ingram and the team at breakthroughusa.com have been tracking this ruling closely since it dropped, and what they are seeing has significant implications for thousands of applicants across the country.

On June 5th, 2026, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island vacated four separate USCIS policies that had been freezing green card applications, work permits, naturalization filings, and asylum cases for affected nationals. The decision is nationwide. All four policies are gone.

If you have been asking whether your frozen case can finally move forward, this ruling matters. But before you assume the problem is solved, there are critical things you need to understand. Stay with us.

CASE STUDY

Chidera arrived in the United States from Lagos on an H-1B visa in 2019. By 2024, he had an approved I-140 petition, a committed employer sponsor, and a realistic timeline to a green card. He filed his I-485 adjustment of status application in early 2025, paid every required fee, attended his biometrics appointment, and waited for the system to do its job.

It never did.

Shortly after the travel ban expanded in late 2025, USCIS quietly placed an indefinite hold on Chidera’s case. No individual review. No flag on his record. No explanation beyond the country on his birth certificate. Nigeria had been added to the ban list. That single fact was enough to freeze everything.

By early 2026, Chidera’s employment authorization had lapsed. His employer was fighting to keep him. His family in Lagos was waiting on a petition that had stopped moving. He was doing everything he was supposed to do, and the system was doing nothing in return.

On June 5th, 2026, a federal judge looked at that situation and called it exactly what it was.

WHAT THE COURT ACTUALLY DECIDED

The case is Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island versus USCIS, decided in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The opinion runs 135 pages. Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. examined four USCIS policies that had been operating since late 2025 and vacated every one of them.

Cyrus D. Mehta, a Cambridge and Columbia Law School-educated immigration attorney and Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, wrote that USCIS had thrown, and I quote, “the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo” by freezing applications based solely on country of birth. That framing captures exactly what the court found.

The four policies the court struck down were these:

• The Benefits Hold Policy paused adjudication of green cards, employment authorization documents, and naturalization filings for nationals of the 39 travel ban countries.
• The Global Asylum Hold Policy paused asylum and withholding of removal decisions, and this one applied to all nationalities, not just the 39 countries.
• The Comprehensive Re-Review Policy required USCIS officers to go back and re-examine immigration benefits that had already been approved for affected nationals since January 2021.
• The Country-Specific Factors Policy directed officers to treat an applicant’s nationality, specifically being from a travel ban country, as a significant negative discretionary factor, even when the applicant had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The court found that USCIS had claimed legal authority it simply does not possess. David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, who testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on this exact issue, estimated that USCIS collected over one billion dollars in application fees from more than two million applicants whose cases it was refusing to process. He called it one of the largest immigration frauds in American history.

The court agreed the agency had no legal basis for what it was doing. Judge McConnell found that USCIS justified its actions with, and I quote directly from the opinion, “pretextual concerns of national security that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

All four policies were declared contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. All four were vacated. The relief is nationwide.

FIVE THINGS PEOPLE ARE GETTING WRONG ABOUT THIS RULING

Misconception One: The travel ban itself has been struck down.

If you have been searching “did the court cancel the Trump travel ban,” the answer is no, and this distinction matters enormously. The court did not touch the presidential proclamations from June or December 2025. If you are from one of the 39 countries, you remain subject to travel restrictions. Consular processing of immigrant visas abroad is still frozen for many affected nationalities. What the court struck down was the internal USCIS mechanism used to freeze domestic applications, cases filed by people already living in the United States who had already paid their fees and done everything required of them. As Attorney Chris Ingram explains at the Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram: the travel ban governs who can enter the country. This ruling governs how USCIS must treat people who are already here and already in the system. Those are two entirely different legal questions, and only one of them was decided on June 5th.

Misconception Two: USCIS will now automatically process every frozen case.

This is one of the most dangerous assumptions you can make right now. Anisa Rahim, Legal Director of the South Asian American Justice Collaborative, noted that thousands of immigrants lawfully seeking benefits had been subjected to unnecessary delay, and the hard reality is that a court order does not move a file. The government is not going to proactively reach out to every affected applicant. Attorney Chris Ingram advises: a court order creates an obligation for the agency. It does not create momentum in your individual case. That momentum has to come from you, through your attorney. Proactive engagement with USCIS, on the record, is the only way to ensure your case does not sit at the back of a very long queue.

Misconception Three: The government has accepted this ruling and will comply.

People searching “is the USCIS freeze over” need to understand that this legal fight is not finished. An appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals is widely expected. The government is also likely to request a stay of the ruling while that appeal is decided, which could restore the freeze while the case works its way through the appellate system. There are also dozens of overlapping cases across multiple federal districts, and a circuit split remains a real possibility. This ruling is a major victory, but as Attorney Chris Ingram at the Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram cautions: in immigration law, a win on Monday can be stayed by Friday. Stay informed. Keep your attorney close.

Misconception Four: If your country is on the list, you can now travel internationally.

Do not travel. This cannot be stated clearly enough. The travel ban restrictions on entry from abroad remain fully in force. If you are from one of the 39 countries and you are currently in the United States, leaving could mean you cannot return. The ruling that was just handed down protects your pending application inside the United States. It does not protect your ability to re-enter if you leave. People asking “can I travel home if my green card case is pending” need to hear this: the answer, for travel ban nationals, is almost certainly no. Not without a thorough assessment from an experienced immigration attorney first.

Misconception Five: This ruling only applies to green card applicants from the 39 countries.

The Global Asylum Hold, which was one of the four vacated policies, applied to affirmative asylum applications regardless of nationality. If you have been asking “why is my asylum case taking so long” or “did USCIS freeze my asylum application,” this ruling applies to you even if your country is not on the 39-country travel ban list. For green cards, work permits, and naturalization, the freeze was tied specifically to the 39 affected nationalities. But for asylum, the court’s relief is broader. If you are unsure which policy affected your case, that is a conversation to have with a qualified immigration attorney before you draw any conclusions.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO RIGHT NOW

The morning after the ruling dropped, Chidera’s attorney sent a formal inquiry to USCIS. Not demanding. Not threatening. Simply putting the agency on notice: this case exists, the client is aware of the ruling, and adjudication should now proceed without any nationality-based hold applied. That is the right posture. That is what proactive case management looks like in the wake of a decision like this.

Here is what the Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram recommends if your case may be affected.

• First, confirm your case type. The ruling covers I-485 adjustment of status, employment authorization documents, naturalization applications, and asylum filings. If you are unsure whether your specific case falls within scope, get a case assessment before you do anything else.
• Second, do not wait passively for USCIS to act. The agency is managing millions of cases. Yours will not automatically move to the front of the line. A formal inquiry, a service request, or in some cases a motion to compel may be the right next step depending on your situation and how long your case has been frozen.
• Third, do not travel internationally under any circumstances without speaking to your attorney first. The travel ban governing entry from abroad is still active. Leaving the United States as a travel ban national is a serious risk. Reentry is not guaranteed.
• Fourth, if your employment authorization has already expired, treat this as urgent. An expired EAD affects your ability to work legally and in some situations can affect your underlying status. Get legal advice now, not next week.
• Fifth, monitor this litigation closely over the coming weeks. A stay request or First Circuit appeal could change the situation quickly. The Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram is tracking every development in Dorcas v. USCIS and will publish updates as they happen. Visit breakthroughusa.com to stay current.

CLOSING

Chidera did not do anything wrong. He followed every rule, met every deadline, paid every fee. And for over a year, the agency he trusted to process his application did nothing, not because of anything in his file, but because of where he was born.

A 135-page federal court opinion looked at that and said: no. That is not what the law permits. That is not how this agency is allowed to operate.

If you are in Chidera’s position right now, this ruling is real reason for hope. Not a guarantee. Not the end of the road. But a clear, court-ordered signal that the legal system still has mechanisms to push back against overreach.

The next step belongs to you. Find out where your case stands. Understand what options you have. Do not let another month pass without a strategy.

The Law Offices of Chris M. Ingram has been navigating exactly these kinds of high-stakes moments in U.S. immigration law since 2004. Your situation may feel impossible. It is not. But waiting without a plan is the one thing you cannot afford to do.