A federal judge in Maryland has delivered a significant legal victory to immigrants whose green card applications were frozen under the Trump administration's travel ban policies, ruling that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cannot indefinitely refuse to process cases it has already accepted.
U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III ordered USCIS to resume processing green card applications for 83 plaintiffs whose cases had been put on hold under a country-based policy tied to a national-security review.
In a 39-page ruling issued Friday and published Monday, Russell found that the policy amounted to an unlawful, categorical, and indefinite pause on green card applications.
The ruling centers on a key legal distinction that could reverberate through dozens of similar cases nationwide:
"USCIS does not have discretion to decide not to adjudicate at all," Judge Russell wrote, ordering the agency to continue working on the applications.
Background: How the Freeze Began
The case traces back to a series of presidential proclamations and agency policy memos issued in late 2025 and early 2026.
On December 16, 2025, the Trump administration expanded the travel ban to include an additional 20 countries, and on January 1, 2026, the administration expanded the pause on immigration applications to include individuals from all 39 countries listed in the Expanded Travel and Immigration Ban.
The presidential proclamations were framed as entry restrictions — limits on who may enter the United States from designated "Countries of Identified Concern." USCIS took this as applying to the agency, issuing policy memos which imposed indefinite holds on adjudicating green card applications solely based on where applicants were born.
All but three of the plaintiffs are citizens of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Syria, or Venezuela; the other three are married to citizens of those countries.
Twenty-five are spouses or children of the other 58.
The Court's Reasoning
Judge Russell's opinion drew a critical line between the government's power to screen applicants and its obligation to actually decide cases.
Russell did not order the agency to approve the applications. He ordered USCIS to process them rather than leave them in indefinite limbo, drawing a line between the government's power to vet and deny cases and its ability to stop deciding them altogether.
The judge rejected the government's argument that courts lack authority to review the freeze, explaining that while immigration officials have discretion in how they decide cases, they do not have the power to indefinitely refuse to decide them. Unlike routine delays caused by visa backlogs, the court said USCIS has a legal obligation to process applications within a reasonable time.
He ruled that the USCIS policy memorandum counts as a "final agency action" eligible for court review.
Russell found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm without final decisions on their applications, and that a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest.
The judge also underscored the human stakes.
Russell wrote in his ruling that many plaintiffs "have already been admitted to the United States, some for years or over a decade," and had maintained lawful status.
He noted that many are scientists and researchers who are unable to attend international conferences while their residency applications are pending.
The Government's Response
Reacting to the ruling, a USCIS spokesperson stated: "USCIS has paused all adjudications for aliens from high-risk countries while USCIS works to ensure that all aliens from these countries are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The pause will allow for a comprehensive examination of all pending benefit requests for aliens from the designated high-risk countries."
USCIS has said it compiled information on each country listed in the travel ban proclamations and is working with the Department of State to identify risk factors, while developing a layered vetting plan incorporating expanded criminal history checks, identity verification, and ad hoc security checks.
Scale of the Impact
The ruling arrives amid growing alarm over the breadth of the adjudication freeze.
The Cato Institute estimates that about two million total petitions are impacted, including one million applications for work authorization.
Project Press Unpause, a campaign tracking the pause, estimates USCIS had collected over $1 billion in fees from over 2 million applications it was not processing.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of people were thrown into limbo after the Trump administration paused reviewing their visa, green card, work permit, and citizenship applications. The pause is targeted at those born in one of 39 countries, including Nigeria, Myanmar, and Venezuela.
Recent analysis by the Cato Institute found that approvals for lawful permanent residence have fallen across most categories over the past year, with family-based green card approvals falling 54 percent between July 2025 and January 2026.
What the Ruling Does — and Does Not Do
It is important to understand the boundaries of this decision.
The order only applies to the 83 plaintiffs.
The judge ordered USCIS to restart work on the plaintiffs' green card applications but declined to require decisions within 30 days, noting that the cases were at very different stages and some would reasonably take longer to complete.
Russell's order does not grant any plaintiff a green card. It does not eliminate national-security screening, create extra immigrant visa numbers, solve the employment-based backlog for India or China, or impose a fixed deadline for decisions in all similar cases. Nor does the ruling automatically cover every applicant nationwide whose case has stalled under a similar policy.
However,
the direct benefit runs to the 83 plaintiffs, though the court's reasoning is likely to shape arguments by others who say USCIS has left their cases frozen without a meaningful path to adjudication.
A Growing Wave of Litigation
This Maryland ruling is part of an expanding legal challenge to the USCIS pause.
Five federal court rulings have now blocked the adjudication hold for individual or group plaintiffs, though the hold remains in effect nationwide.
There are at least 33 lawsuits challenging the pauses, filed by individuals as well as on behalf of large groups, with one immigration attorney in Colorado representing over 500 people impacted by the holds.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Northern California issued a preliminary injunction mandating that USCIS issue a decision by May 18 on applications from 31 citizens of Iran and one citizen of Sudan who are waiting on work authorizations. In that order, Judge Susan van Keulen noted that government lawyers confirmed the holds are indefinite — contradicting USCIS's own acknowledgment that it has a duty to issue timely decisions.
Practical Implications for Affected Applicants
For applicants from the 39 affected countries, the landscape remains uncertain but evolving.
Travel-ban rules, advance parole validity, pending adjustment status, and consular restrictions can interact in ways that turn a delayed case into a more serious immigration problem. If the principal applicant's case stalls, a spouse's EAD may expire, a child may approach age-out risk, and plans involving housing, healthcare, education, relocation, or visits to relatives abroad can unravel quickly.
Immigration attorneys recommend that affected families take a comprehensive inventory of all pending documents and statuses — not just the Form I-485 green card application, but also EAD validity, advance parole, visa status, I-94 expiration dates, and dependent status.
According to immigration attorney Zachary New, about 30 lawsuits have been filed challenging the processing freeze, and judges have granted four injunctions requiring USCIS to process those plaintiffs' petitions. The leader of Project Unpause has said that currently the only way to move applications forward seems to be to sue.
As this legal battle continues to unfold across multiple federal courts, Judge Russell's ruling establishes a clear principle: while the government retains broad authority over immigration decisions, that authority includes the obligation to actually make them. For the millions of applicants left waiting, the question now is whether this legal reasoning will extend beyond 83 plaintiffs in Maryland to the broader population caught in USCIS's nationwide freeze.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you are affected by the USCIS adjudication pause, consult with a qualified immigration attorney about your specific situation.