Trump officials to appeal judge’s order barring asylum restrictions
HOUSTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it would appeal a judge’s order barring it from enforcing a ban on asylum for any immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.Mexico border, after the president’s attack on the judge prompted an extraordinary rebuke from the U.S. chief justice.
The Justice Department filed a notice saying it will appeal the order to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It also asked the judge to stay his order pending the appeal.
Trump criticized the 9th Circuit before the filing as biased and dismissed the judge who ruled against him — an appointee of Trump’s predecessor — as an “Obama judge.”
Chief Justice John Roberts responded with a statement that the federal judiciary doesn’t have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” It was the first time Roberts has hinted at any criticism of the president, as judges ordinarily avoid making any public statements on politics.
Roberts and the rest of the Supreme Court might end up deciding the asylum case. The 9th Circuit, seen as liberal leaning, has already ruled against Trump in several major immigration cases.
U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order Nov. 19 against Trump’s Nov. 9 proclamation that automatically barred anyone who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border between official ports of entry from seeking asylum.
Trump issued the proclamation in response to the caravans of migrants approaching the border that he’s claimed are a national security threat.
But Tigar sided with legal groups who sued hours after the proclamation was issued. The groups argued that federal law unambiguously says immigrants in the United States can request asylum regardless of how they entered the country lawfully.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” the judge said in his order.
By the estimates of the Department of Homeland Security, about 70,000 people a year claim asylum after crossing illegally.
At least 3,000 people have recently arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California, with hopes of requesting asylum at a port of entry there.