Federal Court Overturns USCIS Pause on Application Processing Submitted by Citizens of 39 Countries on Travel/Visa Bans – UPDATED
- June 12th, 2026
- in Capstone International Services
Federal Court Overturns USCIS Pause on Application Processing Submitted by Citizens of 39 Countries on Travel/Visa Ban (Updated 06/12/2026)
UPDATE 06/12/2026: A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a Court Order on June 5, 2026, overturning recent USCIS policies, including:
- The adjudication pause on USCIS applications for nationals from ‘travel ban’ countries
- The hold on asylum applications
- The use of one’s country of origin as a negative factor in discretionary analysis
- The reconsideration of past benefits granted to nationals from ‘travel ban’ countries
Read the Court Order.
On June 11, 2026 the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a new order. The Court issued a partial final judgement “vacating and setting aside agency policies have immediate effect once they are issued,” and then ordered that “Within twenty-four (24) hours, the Government shall file a status report, advising the Court as to what specific steps it has taken to comply with the Court’s [June 5] Order.”
On June 12, 2026, following the Court’s clarifying order, USCIS filed a notice of appeal of the decision and also posted a news alert stating,
“The Court entered its final judgment on June 11, 2026… USCIS strongly disagrees with the Court’s order but will follow its terms pending possible further judicial review… With entry of final judgment this order is effective immediately, and pursuant to the court-ordered vacatur, applies agency-wide. Thus, the vacatur applies to PM 602-0192, PM 602-0194, and PA 2025-26, which should be treated as if they are not in effect.”
Please note, this ruling only impacts petitions filed with USCIS. It does not impact the travel or visa bans (outlined below).
For reference, the 06/05 Court Order and 06/11 Court Order overturn a policy memo from January 1, 2026 which expanded on USCIS’s prior 12/2/2025 policy memo. The policy memo generally halted all applications submitted to USCIS by citizens of the 39 Countries covered under Presidential Proclamation 10998: Restricting And Limiting The Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of The United States.
This impacted all cases filed with USCIS, including Asylum and Permanent Residency case filings as well as I-765 Employment Authorization Applications, I-539 Petitions for Change-of-Status or Extension-of-Status, I-129 Petitions for H-1B, and other petitions filed with USCIS for citizens of Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burma, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Cote D’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, The Gambia, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
See: Immigration Updates Page for latest news