‘Significant win’: R.I. advocates celebrate ruling against Trump immigration policies
PROVIDENCE — Immigrant advocates and state officials praised a federal judge’s decision to strike down Trump administration policies that targeted immigrants from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries — and vowed to continue to fight.
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“These policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused profound fear and uncertainty for many of our friends, neighbors, and colleagues,” Milagro Sique, the chief executive officer of Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, said at a press conference Wednesday. “Having the judicial process work as intended by upholding the rule of law gives us some reassurance that is not all lost.”
Dorcas and the Providence-based Refugee Dream Center were part of a coalition of nonprofits and unions that sued US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the US Department of Homeland Security. They told the US District Court of Rhode Island about the impact on immigrants, who had their lives upended when the Trump administration decided tohalt asylum applications and freeze immigration and citizenship applications, work permits, and green cards, solely based on where they were from.
“I can look at the Afghan refugee who fought in the military side by side with American soldiers. His family is stopped back in Afghanistan because of what Trump decided,” said Teddi Jallow, a refugee from The Gambia and executive director of the Refugee Dream Center. “Just think about it, we have millions of refugees out there who are not coming to the US, who are not being settled in the US, and Trump decided to bring white South Africans as refugees.”
In his 135-page opinion on Friday, US District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. noted the irony of those who claim that immigrants should come to the country “the right way,” and wrote that the Trump policies had targeted immigrants following the laws, for no other reason than their nationality. The judge called out the “anti-immigrant animus” in the Trump administration policies and declared them unlawful.
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The Trump administration is expected to appeal.
“It was a significant win for the state of Rhode Island, certainly the city of Providence, and honestly for the entire country,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said Wednesday. “It was a win for fairness, for the rule of law, and a win for communities who refuse to stay silent in the face of unjust policies.”
Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, who is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, said that the immigrants today are no different than those from years ago, who fled famine, dictatorships, and wars, “looking for the freedom and protection this country provides.”
The administration’s policies had also stoppedprocesses to citizenship, including naturalization ceremonies, the last step for those who take the oath and “choose to be part of this country,” said Kevin Love Hubbard, counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, one of the legal groups that brought the lawsuit.
At those ceremonies, the new citizens are each given a small American flag. “It’s important for me, when it can feel hopeless, to remember that flag belongs to especially people who fight and choose to adopt it as their own,” Hubbard said, “and it belongs to all of us, and that the Trump administration cannot have it without a fight.”
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