Court strikes down Trump policy blocking asylum seekers

A US judge on Wednesday struck down President Donald Trump administration policies aimed at restricting asylum claims by people citing gang or domestic violence in their home countries and ordered the US government to bring back six deported migrants to reconsider their cases.

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the White House on immigration. Last month, a judge in San Francisco ordered a halt to a policy that prevented those entering illegally from Mexico from seeking asylum.

The policy at the centre of Wednesday’s ruling sought to limit the ability of immigrants to fight expedited deportation by narrowing the grounds for claiming “credible fear” if they returned home, the first step in a long asylum process.

Thousands of people have travelled in caravans this year towards the southern US border to escape gang violence and poverty in Honduras and El Salvador.

The policy was challenged in a District of Columbia lawsuit brought by a dozen adults and children. US Judge Emmet Sullivan said in a 107-page opinion that the policy violated both immigration and administrative law.

“And because it is the will of Congress – not the whims of the executive – that determines the standard for expedited removal, the court finds that those policies are unlawful,” Sullivan wrote.

The Department of Justice filed a request to stay the court’s orders while the government appealed. |

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AP HONDURAN asylum seekers enter the US at San Diego’s Otay Mesa port of entry. A federal judge has blocked restrictive Trump administration policies that prevented some immigrants from seeking asylum. |