A federal judge blocked part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, citing the president’s own “preference” for white immigrants.
U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio issued the ruling Monday, blocking three U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policies that had frozen green card and work permit applications for people from seven countries.
“This general hostility to immigration contrasts with an apparent interest in and preference for the migration of white people,” Marbley wrote. “Aside from a stated desire for more Scandinavian immigration, President Trump has sought to welcome white South Africans.”
From October 2025 through May 2026, the ruling notes, 6,665 of the 6,668 refugees admitted to the U.S. were from South Africa.
At a December 2025 rally in Pennsylvania, Trump asked: “Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few?… Send us some nice people.”
“In sum, both the President and the Vice President have publicly and repeatedly expressed outright hostility toward immigrants, both before and after the 2024 presidential election,” the judge wrote, finding the pattern impossible to ignore.
“Their ire appears focused on immigrants from countries in the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and Asia,” he added.