Court hits pause on Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ regulations

SAN DIEGO — Dealing a significant blow to a signature Trump administration immigration policy, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the government can no longer make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts.

The government faced a setback from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that may prove temporary if President Donald Trump’s administration appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has consistently sided with Mr. Trump on immigration and border security policies.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy, known officially as “Migrant Protection Protocols,” took effect in January 2019 in San Diego and gradually spread across the southern border. Nearly 60,000 people have been sent back to wait for hearings, and officials believe it is a big reason why illegal border crossings plummeted about 80% from a 13-year high in May.

Reaction to the decision was swift among immigration lawyers and advocates who have spent months fighting with the administration over a program they see as a humanitarian disaster, subjecting hundreds of migrants to violence, kidnapping and extortion in dangerous Mexican border cities. Hundreds more have been living in squalid encampments as they wait for their next court date.

Advocates planned to have immigrants immediately cross the border and present the court decision to authorities Friday, with the group Human Rights First hand-delivering a copy to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at a bridge connecting Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Lawyers were hoping to get their clients before U.S. immigration court judges.

The decision interrupted some court cases. Immigration Judge Philip Law in San Diego delayed a final hearing on a Honduran man’s asylum case to April 17 after a government attorney couldn’t answer his questions about the effect of the ruling, which temporarily halts the policy during legal challenges. The government attorney said she asked her supervisor how to address the ruling and that he didn’t know what to do either.

In El Paso, an administrator came to tell a judge of the ruling as he heard the case of a Central American mother and her partner. The couple cried when they learned they could get into the U.S. with restrictions.

The Justice Department sharply criticized the ruling, saying it “not only ignores the constitutional authority of Congress and the administration for a policy in effect for over a year, but also extends relief beyond the parties before the court.”

Judge William Fletcher, writing for the majority, sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups who argued the policy violates international treaty obligations against sending people back to a country where they are likely to be persecuted or tortured on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, political beliefs or membership in a particular social group.

Judge Fletcher agreed the government set the bar too high for asylum-seekers to persuade officers that they should be exempt from the policy and didn’t provide enough time for them to prepare for interviews or consult lawyers. The judges said the government also erred by requiring asylum-seekers to express fear of returning to Mexico to be considered for an exemption.