{"id":614340,"date":"2026-06-06T23:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T23:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=614340"},"modified":"2026-06-06T23:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T23:50:00","slug":"obama-appointed-judge-orders-trump-admin-to-restart-processing-asylum-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=614340","title":{"rendered":"Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/judge-orders-trump-administration-to-restart-processing-asylum-claims-6043861?utm_source=partner&amp;utm_campaign=ZeroHedge\"><em>Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The Trump administration must restart processing claims of asylum, a federal judge ruled on June 5.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Officials must also resume adjudicating requests for immigration benefits such as work permits from nationals of 39 countries from which President Donald Trump has restricted travel, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., based in Rhode Island, said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is the same judge AFL exposed for failing to recuse from the Trump spending freeze case &#8211; despite previously leading a nonprofit that received $128M in federal funding.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/judge-john-mcconnell_trump.jpg?itok=PWDRdX4L\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/judge-john-mcconnell_trump.jpg?itok=PWDRdX4L\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"93297d00-c7ad-4bbb-ae91-ea4838ff0569\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" height=\"281\" width=\"500\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/judge-john-mcconnell_trump.jpg?itok=PWDRdX4L\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Department of Homeland Security and its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) division, which implemented the challenged policies, said they did not agree with the ruling.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em><strong>\u201cThe Left has been running the same gambit with so-called \u2018animus\u2019 claims since 2017. It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,\u201d <\/strong>James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s general counsel, told The Epoch Times via email.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt goes like this: (1) the admin is racist, (2) therefore a policy I don\u2019t like is motivated by race, (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump era Department of Homeland Security policy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em><strong>\u201cThese policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused \u2026 profound fear and uncertainty for so many of our friends, neighbors, and coworkers,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Milagro Sique, CEO of Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>\u201cHaving the judicial process work as intended\u2014by upholding the rule of law\u2014gives us some reassurance that all is not lost and allows those who have been impacted to move forward with their lives in a meaningful way.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The administration in late 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/uscis-halts-all-asylum-decisions-in-wake-of-national-guard-shooting-5951271\">announced<\/a> the policies in the wake of the shooting, allegedly by an Afghan national, of National Guard members near the White House. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said at the time that asylum claims would not be processed \u201cuntil we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A coalition of groups, including the Service Employees International Union and the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit over the policies in March. They said that the policies violated federal law because they went beyond the authority of USCIS, were arbitrary and capricious, and went against U.S. Constitutional protections.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Government lawyers said the policies fell within the authority Congress outlined in the Immigration and Naturalization Act.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>McConnell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28200815-mcconnell-order-on-asylum-processing\/\">said<\/a> Friday in a 135-page decision that the policies \u201cthrew the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo\u201d solely because of where the immigrants were born.<\/p>\n<p><strong>He wrote that USCIS violated federal laws, in part because officials made decisions without adequate explanation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>\u201cThe agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency\u2019s actions,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 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 \u2018national security\u2019 that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making. <strong>In legal terms that means USCIS\u2019s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The ruling vacated the policies as illegal and set them aside, as well as two other USCIS policies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One involved reviewing and reconsidering past decisions granting immigration benefits to any people from countries subject to Trump\u2019s travel ban. The other featured amendments to the USCIS policy manual, requiring agency workers to take a person\u2019s home country as a negative factor when deciding whether to grant requests for benefits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" lang=\"\" class=\"username\" xml:lang=\"\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Sat, 06\/06\/2026 &#8211; 19:50<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/judge-john-mcconnell_trump.jpg?itok=PWDRdX4L\" title=\"Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, The Trump administration must restart processing claims of asylum, a federal judge ruled on June 5. Officials must also resume adjudicating requests for immigration benefits such as work permits from nationals of 39 countries from which President&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=614340\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":614341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=614340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/614341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=614340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=614340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=614340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}