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A Rhode Island judge faces impeachment over a USCIS ruling
The House says Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. let national security concerns fall away when he blocked a policy that paused some immigration cases and reopened approved benefits for review.
A House resolution in Washington says Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island went too far when he vacated a USCIS policy framework that had paused asylum applications and pending immigration benefit requests. The filing says the judge’s order also would have forced a new review of already approved immigration benefits and required the agency to weigh country-specific factors in discretionary decisions.
The resolution frames that ruling as more than a disagreement over immigration policy. It says the judge’s actions amounted to abuse of judicial discretion, dereliction of duty and endangerment of public safety.
The ruling at the center
The article of impeachment focuses on one order: McConnell’s June 5 decision in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island et al. v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services et al. The measure says the policy framework he vacated was designed to keep a closer watch on people from high-risk countries who entered the United States on a visa.
The impeachment language does not just challenge the outcome. It argues that the judge’s decision undermined a safeguard built into the immigration system, and that is the conduct the House says should count as high crimes and misdemeanors.