Court sets limits on order halting new asylum rules
HOUSTON — A federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for the U.S. government to forbid Central American immigrants from seeking asylum at the two busiest stretches of the southern border in a partial legal victory for the Trump administration.
The order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals limited a lower court’s ruling against President Trump’s policy to California and Arizona. Under Friday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar’s July 24 order won’t apply to New Mexico or Texas.
The two busiest areas for border crossings are in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and the region around El Paso, Texas, which includes New Mexico. About 46,500 people in July crossed the U.S. border without permission in those two regions, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
The policy would deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without seeking protection there. Most crossing the southern border are Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty, who would largely be ineligible. The policy would also apply to people from Africa, Asia, and South America who come to the southern border to request asylum.
If the policy is implemented, ineligible migrants who cross in New Mexico and Texas could be detained and more quickly deported.
Under American law, people can request asylum when they arrive in the U.S. regardless of how they enter. The law makes an exception for those who have come through a country considered to be “safe” pursuant to an agreement between the U.S. and that country.
Canada and the U.S. have a “safe third country” agreement. But the U.S. doesn’t have one with Mexico or countries in Central America.
The U.S. government already is turning away many asylum seekers at the southern border.
About 30,000 people have been returned to Mexico to await asylum hearings under the government’s Migrant Protection Protocols program. Tens of thousands of others are waiting in shelters and camps to present themselves to U.S. border agents at official ports of entry that have limited how many asylum seekers they will process daily.
Tigar had ruled the policy could expose migrants to violence and abuse, deny their rights under international law and return them to countries they were fleeing.
The appeals court ruled that Tigar’s order hadn’t considered whether a nationwide order was necessary and that there wasn’t enough evidence presented yet to find that it was.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups had sued the Trump administration after it announced the restrictions last month. “We will continue fighting to end the ban entirely and permanently,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the ACLU.