Judge blocks Trump’s ban on asylum

SAYS PRESIDENT CANNOT SHIFT POLICY ON HIS OWN; COURT ORDER TO BE IN EFFECT UNTIL DECEMBER 19

Afederal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from denying asylum to migrants who illegally cross the southern border into the US, saying the policy likely violated federal law on asylum eligibility.

In a ruling late Monday, Jon S. Tigar of the US District Court in San Francisco issued a temporary nationwide restraining order barring enforcement of the policy. President Trump’s action was announced on November 9, though the White House had last month floated drastic changes to the way the US affords sanctuary to people fleeing persecution in their home countries.

The judge’s order remains in effect until December 19, at which point the court will consider arguments for a permanent order. The president’s decree, now blocked, came just after the midterm election campaign, in which Trump made immigration and national security the GOP’s closing argument.

He and his allies spread fear about the “Caravan heading to the Southern Border,” which, as he asserted without evidence in one pre-election tweet, included “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.”

In another, he warned of “some very bad thugs and gang members.” Labelling the movements of Central American migrants a “national emergency,” Trump last month deployed active-duty troops to the border.

But the judge said the president could not shift asylum policy on his own. “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” he wrote.

Ivanka Trump repeatedly used a personal email account to conduct government business in 2017, a White House review found, a fact that raises the stakes on congressional oversight hearings the new Democratic House majority will hold.

Trump’s email use, much of which first came to light last year, included exchanges on her personal account with Cabinet secretaries, as well as forwards of schedules to her assistant, a person familiar with the emails said.

Democrats will be in control of at least 232 seats when the new House is sworn in next year, according to The New York Times’ latest count. And the personal email use of Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who both serve as senior advisers to the president, has been expected to be among the topics the new leaders will address.

The subject has particular irony for Democrats, who bitterly point to President Donald Trump highlighting during the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. At rally after rally, Trump discussed her server, buoyed by chants of “Lock her up!” from his crowds.