U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. — an Obama appointee sitting in Rhode Island — just issued a 135-page ruling ordering the Trump administration to restart processing asylum claims and resume handing out work permits for nationals of 39 countries on the travel restriction list. Because apparently one unelected lawyer in a robe gets to override the entire executive branch on national security.
Isn't it amazing how these rulings always come from the same vintage of judge? Obama-appointed, 2012 confirmed, and still fighting a war against border enforcement like it's his personal mission from the previous administration.
Judge McConnell declared that "USCIS's actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious" — which is judge-speak for "I don't like Trump's policies and I have a gavel." The ruling, handed down June 5, vacates multiple policies the administration put in place after an Afghan national committed a shooting in late 2025. You know, policies designed to keep Americans alive.
The specific actions McConnell torched include: the halt on asylum processing, the requirement that USCIS review past immigration benefit grants for nationals from restricted countries, and manual amendments that treated an applicant's home country as a factor in benefit decisions. In other words, every single commonsense measure that said "maybe we should look twice at applications from countries that produce terrorists."
DHS General Counsel James Percival nailed it in his response: "The Left has been running the same gambit with so-called 'animus' claims since 2017." He's right. This is the ninth year of the same playbook — find a friendly Obama or Clinton judge, claim the policy is motivated by bigotry rather than security, get an injunction. Rinse, repeat.
The plaintiffs in this case tell you everything you need to know about who's really driving it: the Service Employees International Union, the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, and the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island. The lawsuit was filed in March 2026, and they forum-shopped it right into McConnell's courtroom.
Milagro Sique, CEO of Dorcas International Institute, celebrated by saying "these policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused profound fear." You know what else causes profound fear? An Afghan national with a gun who got into this country through the exact immigration system these people want to keep wide open.
USCIS Director Joseph Edlow now has to figure out how to comply with a ruling that essentially tells his agency to ignore the security failures that prompted the restrictions in the first place. The administration implemented these policies for a reason — a deadly reason — and one district court judge in Rhode Island just decided that reason doesn't matter.
This is what we're dealing with, folks. Seventy-five million Americans voted for secure borders. One man in a black robe said no. The lawsuit was filed three months ago and we already have a 135-page opinion gutting executive authority on immigration. Meanwhile, actual legislation takes years.
The system isn't broken. It's working exactly as the left designed it — with Obama judges as the permanent backstop against any policy the American people actually voted for.