A federal judge has ordered USCIS to resume adjudicating benefit applications that had been frozen under two policy memoranda, and did so on a class-wide basis. On Aug. 24, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order in Red Eagle Law, L.C., et al. v. Joseph B. Edlow, 26-cv-04850-CRB (N.D. Cal.), enjoining PM 602-0192 and PM 602-0194. USCIS confirmed the order in a newsroom alert dated Aug. 28, stating that it is “ordered to adjudicate applications in the normal course of USCIS’ process.”
The two memoranda created what practitioners came to call the adjudication hold. PM 602-0192, issued Dec. 2, 2025, established the original hold-and-review policy; PM 602-0194, issued Jan. 1, 2026, extended it to additional countries. Both were grounded in Presidential Proclamation 10949 (June 4, 2025) and Presidential Proclamation 10998 (Dec. 16, 2025), and USCIS has described them as measures to enhance screening and vetting and to address national security and public safety concerns. Their practical effect was that benefit applications from nationals of the listed countries stopped moving — not denied, simply held, in many cases for months, with no adjudication and no clear end date.
The court also granted class certification, which is what makes this order broader than relief for the named plaintiffs. The certified class covers individuals who are citizens or natives of one or more of the 39 countries listed in Proclamations 10949 or 10998, or the Palestinian Authority, and who either have a pending Form I-589 asylum application or otherwise have a benefit application pending with USCIS that was subject to the hold imposed by PM 602-0192 or PM 602-0194 and had not received final adjudication as of the date of class certification. That reaches adjustment of status, employment authorization, and other benefit filings — not asylum alone.
This is the second judicial defeat for these memoranda. On June 5, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island vacated PM 602-0192, PM 602-0194 and Policy Alert 2025-26 in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, with final judgment entered June 11 and agency-wide effect.
USCIS has said it “strongly disagrees” with the order but will follow its terms pending possible further judicial review, and that it will issue updated instructions as the litigation develops. That language is worth reading carefully: the agency is complying, not conceding, and an appeal remains available. Applicants who fall within the class and whose cases have been sitting untouched should expect movement, but should also keep documenting the delay — the posture could shift again on appeal.
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Source: USCIS Newsroom Alert