S.F. judge rules against ban on asylumseekers
A federal judge in San Francisco refused Thursday to let the Trump administration reinstate its ban on U.S. asylum for virtually everyone heading north from Central America, reaffirming his decision that the policy violates immigration laws.
The policy, in effect from July 16 until the judge halted it with an injunction eight days later, denied asylum to anyone who had passed through another country on the way to the Mexico border. The only exceptions were for victims of human trafficking and for migrants who had unsuccessfully sought asylum in the country they had entered.
President Trump’s Justice Department urged U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar to suspend his injunction and restore the policy during appeals to higher courts. Government lawyers insisted the restrictions were legal and said Tigar’s ruling “undermines” the government’s established authority “to enact new regulations to address the ongoing border crisis.”
But Tigar said Thursday that the administration was just recycling its previous arguments.
The administration’s policy “conflicts with the core principle that asylum ... is designed to protect refugees with nowhere else to turn,” Tigar said.
In last week’s ruling, Tigar rejected the administration’s argument that the migrants could safely seek asylum in Mexico, observing that its asylum system was flooded with applications, its detention centers were packed beyond capacity, and wouldbe refugees, as the group Human Rights First has documented, “face deadly dangers in Mexico.”
Asylum allows an immigrant to remain in the United States, obtain a work permit and eventually apply for citizenship. It is granted to noncitizens who can show a “wellfounded fear of persecution” in their home country for reasons such as race, religion, political views, nationality or sexual orientation.
In asking Tigar for a stay of his injunction, the Justice Department argued that conditions in Mexico were irrelevant to the legal issues in the case — and that even if they were relevant, the administration was entitled to assess practices in foreign countries without “secondguessing” by judges. Tigar was unpersuaded.
Because every asylum applicant affected by the new policy “will have passed through Mexico,” he said, “the risk of violence and availability of fair asylum procedures in Mexico is therefore paramount.” And he said the government did not explain why it disagreed with the assessments of conditions in Mexico by “respected ... humanitarian organizations.”
The Justice Department has said it would ask a federal appeals court for an emergency stay if Tigar did not grant one by Friday.
Attorney Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented immigrant advocates challenging the policy, said, “We are pleased the judge continues to recognize the harm that would occur if this ban were to go into effect.”