Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, No. 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I. June 5, 2026)

In a sweeping decision issued today, Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island vacated the USCIS policies that have frozen immigration benefits for nationals of thirty-nine countries since late last year. The court held that all four challenged policies are unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, declared them invalid, and set them aside.

This is a significant ruling. Unlike the earlier preliminary injunction wins in other districts, which have generally limited relief to the named plaintiffs in those cases, the remedy here is vacatur of the underlying policies themselves. That carries far broader effect.

To be clear, this is not a Reddy Neumann Brown PC case. The litigation was brought by a coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions, including the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, the Refugee Dream Center, SEIU, the UAW, African Communities Together, the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, and American Gateways. We are covering it because of its direct impact on employment-based and family-based applicants across the country.

What was struck down

The court vacated four distinct USCIS policies, which it referred to collectively as the Challenged Policies:

1. The Benefits Hold Policy. This placed an indefinite hold on adjudication of all immigration benefit requests, including adjustment of status, employment authorization, and naturalization, filed by individuals from the thirty-nine Travel Ban Countries.
2. The Global Asylum Hold Policy. This halted adjudication of all asylum and withholding of removal applications, regardless of the applicant’s country of origin.
3. The Comprehensive Re-Review Policy. This required USCIS to re-review and reconsider already approved benefit requests for any individual from a Travel Ban Country who entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021.
4. The Country-Specific Factors Policy. This updated the USCIS Policy Manual to direct adjudicators to treat country-specific factors from the travel ban as a significant negative factor when weighing discretion in benefit adjudications.

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction, finding vacatur sufficient, and denied the government’s motion to dismiss the constitutional claims without prejudice.

How we got here

The policies trace back to Executive Order 14161 and the administration’s revived travel ban. President Trump issued Proclamation 10949 in June 2025, restricting entry for nationals of nineteen countries, and then expanded the list to thirty-nine countries through Proclamation 10998 in December 2025.

USCIS followed with two policy memoranda. The December 2, 2025 memorandum (PM-602-0192) imposed the initial adjudication hold tied to the nineteen-country list and placed a nationwide hold on asylum applications. The January 1, 2026 memorandum (PM-602-0194) expanded the hold to cover all thirty-nine Travel Ban Countries. The agency described the holds as a national security and vetting measure and said they would remain in place until lifted by a superseding directive from the USCIS Director.

The practical result was that applicants who had filed properly, paid their fees, completed biometrics, and attended interviews were left waiting for months with no decision, and in many cases lost work authorization, jobs, and legal status while their cases sat frozen.

Why the court ruled against the government

The court grounded its decision entirely in the APA and declined to reach the plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment due process and equal protection claims, invoking the doctrine of constitutional avoidance.

On the merits, the court found that USCIS claimed statutory and regulatory authority it does not possess, failed to provide the reasoned explanation the law requires, ignored the reliance interests of applicants, and justified the policies with national security concerns that the court characterized as pretextual. The court pointed to the mandatory statutory and regulatory language governing asylum and withholding adjudications, noting that USCIS is not free to adjudicate some cases while indefinitely holding a subset of others based on country of birth. In a pointed passage, the court wrote that the hold could not be attributed to anything the affected individuals did wrong and arose solely by the happenstance of their birth.

The court also relied on public statements by the President and the former DHS Secretary as probative evidence that the stated national security rationale masked impermissible animus, drawing on the recent line of TPS termination cases.

What this means for the government’s options

The decision leaves the administration with several realistic paths forward, and immigration practitioners should expect movement quickly:

• Appeal to the First Circuit. This is the most likely near-term step. DHS has already signaled in related litigation that it views these policies as core national security functions, and an appeal of a nationwide vacatur is the natural response.
• Motion to stay pending appeal. The government may ask the district court or the First Circuit to stay the vacatur so the holds can remain in effect while the appeal proceeds. Whether a stay is granted will shape what happens to pending cases in the interim.
• Attempt to re-promulgate the policy. The court’s APA analysis leaves open the possibility that USCIS could try again with a more developed administrative record, a reasoned explanation, attention to reliance interests, and potentially notice-and-comment rulemaking. A repackaged policy built on the same pretext findings would face an uphill battle, but the agency has shown willingness to revise and re-issue.
• Narrow or wind down the policy. USCIS had already begun selectively lifting holds, including for asylum applicants from so-called non high-risk countries in its March 30, 2026 alert. The agency could lean into a narrower, case-by-case framing rather than a categorical hold.

There is also a backdrop of conflicting and overlapping litigation. Dozens of cases challenging the benefits holds are pending across federal district courts, including Doe v. Trump in the District of Massachusetts, and several have produced preliminary relief limited to individual plaintiffs. A nationwide vacatur out of Rhode Island changes the landscape, but circuit splits and competing rulings remain a real possibility.

The future of this

For now, the four challenged policies are vacated and set aside. That is the headline.

We expect DHS to appeal and very possibly to seek a stay. Until the dust settles, the status of pending cases for affected applicants could shift again, potentially more than once. We will be watching closely for the government’s next filing, any stay ruling, and any new USCIS guidance, and we will update as more information becomes available.

If you or your employees have a benefit request that has been held up under these policies, this ruling may open a path to adjudication. Reach out to our team to discuss how today’s decision affects your specific matter.

By: Steven Brown

Steven A. Brown is a Partner at Reddy Neumann Brown PC, where he leads the firm’s Litigation Team, addressing delays and denials of immigration benefits, FOIA requests, and policy and regulatory challenges. Steven is dedicated to delivering practical and effective solutions for clients facing unreasonably delayed or unlawfully withheld immigration benefits, including Employment Authorization Documents (EADs), advance parole, green cards, 221(g) decisions, EB-5 delays, and other immigration-related matters. His litigation efforts were instrumental in Shergill, et al. v. Mayorkas, a landmark case that led to the U.S. government recognizing that under the INA, L-2 and E visa spouses are authorized to work incident to their status, eliminating the need for separate EAD applications. This case has transformed work authorization for thousands of families across the United States.