President Donald Trump’s administration is set to resume processing thousands of green card, asylum and other immigration applications that had been frozen for months under its travel ban policies, after a federal judge ruled the pause was unlawful.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in a statement that while it “strongly disagrees with the court’s order” it would comply with U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s ruling.
While McConnell struck down the policy last week, the Trump administration argued in a court filing on Tuesday that the judge’s order was only preliminary and had not yet “become effective,” suggesting the agency had not resumed making decisions on the affected applications.
McConnell responded on Thursday by entering a formal judgment and ordering the government to stop delaying compliance with his ruling. “There is no excuse this time,” he wrote. “The government has an obligation to immediately comply with this order.”
He gave the administration until Friday evening to file an update “advising the court as to what specific steps it has taken to comply.”
Employees at the agency have been told to treat the bans “as if they are no longer in effect,” USCIS Deputy Director Angelica Alfonso-Royals said in a court filing on Friday.
How the USCIS Pause Began
Trump’s recent ban has been one of the administration’s most sweeping immigration crackdowns since returning to office.
In June 2025, the president signed a proclamation barring entry to the United States for nationals of 12 countries and imposing partial restrictions on another seven, citing national security concerns and shortcomings in foreign governments’ vetting procedures.
USCIS then stopped processing many immigration applications filed by people from a broader group of 39 countries covered by the administration’s restrictions. The move left thousands of applicants unable to obtain green cards, asylum protections, work permits or U.S. citizenship decisions, even if they were already legally living in the United States while their cases were pending. The restrictions largely affected people from countries in Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and the Balkans.
The policy faced immediate legal challenges from immigrant advocacy groups, which argued that the administration had exceeded its authority by halting applications from people already legally present in the United States. McConnell agreed, finding that USCIS had unlawfully suspended processing without following required procedures.
Friday’s filing marks the first indication that the administration will comply with McConnell’s order, but USCIS left the possibility of an appeal open, saying it would “follow its terms pending possible further judicial review.”
Why Was the USCIS Pause Struck Down?
McConnell struck down Trump’s policies on June 5, finding that USCIS lacked the authority to indefinitely freeze immigration applications based on an applicant’s nationality.
He said the policies had left people in “indeterminate legal limbo” and “stuck waiting, for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate.”
The judge, an Obama-era appointee, said the policies were based on “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”
“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,” McConnell wrote.
Why Did USCIS Pause Green Card Applications?
The policies challenged in court stemmed from Trump’s travel ban proclamations, which restricted entry into the United States for nationals of dozens of countries that the administration said posed security and vetting concerns.
USCIS interpreted the travel ban as applying to immigration benefit applications and issued guidance directing officials to place green card cases from nationals of the affected 39 countries on indefinite hold.
The presidential proclamations at issue are the original and then expanded travel bans, which were issued under the Immigration and Nationality Act and framed as entry restrictions—that is, limits on who may enter the United States from designated “Countries of Identified Concern.”
The Trump administration has defended the policy as a national security measure, arguing that additional scrutiny was needed for applicants from countries deemed to have inadequate screening and information-sharing practices.
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