WASHINGTON — A federal court ruled that senior Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli served illegally last year in a position overseeing immigration and invalidated a change to asylum policy put in place during that time.

The decision, issued Sunday by the federal court in Washington, D.C., voided a policy that gave asylum seekers less time to prepare for screening interviews in the U.S. and that was enacted when Cuccinelli, currently the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, served as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS.