A federal judge in Boston on Friday struck down a Trump administration policy that paused the processing of immigration applications from countries subject to President Donald Trump's travel bans.

Trump has imposed travel bans and pauses on immigration applications from a number of countries, primarily in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which he escalated in response to the shooting of two members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national last year.

U.S. District Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. criticized the Trump administration in his ruling, including the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which he accused of ignoring the law, according to the Associated Press.

“In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making,” he wrote. “In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

The order comes after another federal judge last month blocked the pause, asserting that the government had failed to link isolated instances of Afghan nationals committing crimes to the broader policies affecting more nations.

The USCIS approves applications for migrants to work and become U.S. citizens. The agency, which is housed under the Department of Homeland Security, often grants asylum, but only for migrants already in the country. Immigration judges determine asylum cases for migrants attempting to enter the country through the U.S. border.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.