US judge invalidates travel and visa ban on 39 countries: What happens next?

A U.S. federal judge ruled on Friday that an immigration ban imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on 39 countries following the November shootings in Washington was illegal. Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, ruled that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services engaged in a series of unlawful policies targeting people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.The Obama-appointed judge said the policies have plunged the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into an uncertain legal limbo. “USCIS’s reservation of the ruling cannot be attributed to anything these men did wrong; rather, it is due entirely to the fortuitous events of their birth,” he wrote. “But the rule of law must apply equally to everyone, and it appears here that USCIS neither ‘followed the law’ nor ‘did things the right way,'” McConnell wrote in a 135-page decision. “In fact, the agency violated the immigration laws that Congress entrusted it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s conduct.”The Department of Homeland Security had no immediate reaction to the ruling. The government can appeal the ruling or immediately request a stay if it does not wish to lift the ban.After Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal shot and killed two National Guard members in Washington, he announced policies that would bar immigrants from a range of countries from receiving any immigration benefits, visas, green cards, travel visas. Lacanval did not plead guilty.“The Court is reminded of an oft-repeated refrain in discussions about immigration policy: If people wish to immigrate to the United States, they should ‘obey the law’ and ‘do things the right way,'” the judge wrote. “This case is a perfect example of immigrants doing just that.”

List of 39 countries

Full suspension: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, YemenPartial suspension: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe