On June 5, 2026, Chief Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island ruled that the policies under which USCIS had stopped deciding cases for nationals of some 39 countries were unlawful, and vacated them under the Administrative Procedure Act. The case is Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, brought in March by resettlement agencies, community organizations and two unions. The opinion runs 135 pages. Partial final judgment was entered on June 11 and took effect immediately, agency-wide.
For anyone who has read this site's December piece on the hold, the decision is the other shoe.
What was vacated
Three documents. The November 27, 2025 policy alert that made country of origin a negative factor in every discretionary decision. Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192 of December 2, which placed every pending asylum application in the country on hold and froze all benefit requests from nationals of the nineteen countries on the June 2025 travel ban, with a re-review of approvals granted since January 2021. And PM-602-0194 of January 1, 2026, which extended the freeze and the re-review to the twenty countries added by the expanded travel ban.
The court decided the case on cross-motions for summary judgment after a hearing on May 21, which matters: this is a ruling on the merits, not a preliminary order. It vacated the policies but declined to issue a permanent injunction, and left some constitutional claims undecided.
What the order requires
USCIS must treat all three documents as not in effect and resume ordinary adjudication for everyone they covered. That is the whole of it. The order does not require any application to be approved. It does not touch the travel bans themselves, which restrict entry from abroad and were issued under a different authority. It does not reach the State Department's separate pause on immigrant visas for about 75 countries. A Nigerian national inside the United States with a pending green card application will now get a decision; a Nigerian national at the consulate in Lagos will not get a visa.
USCIS said in an alert that it "strongly disagrees" with the ruling and will comply while it seeks review. It filed a notice of appeal to the First Circuit on June 12 and, on June 18, asked the district court for an emergency stay pending appeal. The opposition is due July 6. No stay had been granted as of this writing.
How we got here
The hold had already begun to fray before the ruling. On March 30 USCIS resumed asylum decisions for nationals of countries not on the lists, and later exempted physicians, some work permit categories and adoption cases while the core freeze stood. Two narrower injunctions came first, in Maryland and Massachusetts, each covering only the named plaintiffs, a few hundred people in all. Dorcas is the first decision to reach everyone.
The backlog it leaves
The figures assembled from USCIS data by outside analysts put the number of affected applications above two million, more than a million of them asylum cases, with over a billion dollars in fees collected on filings that received no decision. Those cases do not clear because a judge signed an order. They rejoin queues that were long before the hold and are longer now, at an agency that has spent six months redeploying its officers to re-reviews rather than adjudications.
What to expect
- Movement, slowly. Naturalization, adjustment, asylum, relative petitions and work permits that were frozen should begin to move. Expect months, not weeks.
- Notices you have already seen. Interview notices, requests for evidence, biometrics appointments. The vetting measures USCIS adopted alongside the hold, including expanded social media and financial checks and re-interviews, were not vacated and remain in force.
- Uncertainty on appeal. If the First Circuit grants a stay, the hold returns. Anything decided in the interval stands; anything still pending stops again.
What to do
- Do nothing rash. The order helps you by making the agency act; it does not require you to act.
- Keep proof of every pending filing and every fee paid. If collection of fees on undecided cases becomes a live claim, the receipts are the evidence.
- Respond to any notice promptly and completely. A case that moves now may not move again if the appeal succeeds.
- Keep your address current, and consult counsel before travel or before any new filing that depends on the vacated policies staying vacated.
The court's finding was that the agency could not lawfully stop deciding cases on the basis of nationality. The agency's response is that it will resume deciding them, under protest, until told otherwise. For the people in the queue, that is the best available outcome and an incomplete one.