Judge rules that U.S. must allow asylum seekers

The Trump administration on Tuesday was forced to resume processing asylum claims from migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, a bitter blow for a president who has waged an all-out effort — including the deployment of thousands of military troops — to stanch the flow of Central American families into the country.

President Donald Trump tried to bar those who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum earlier this month, saying they could only qualify if they waited in line at a legal checkpoint.

As several migrant caravans trudged through Mexico toward the United States, Trump had troops unfurl miles of razor wire at border hotspots and pelted migrants with tweets, calling them “thugs” and ordering them on Sunday to “Go home!”

But U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar froze the president’s new asylum policy late Monday, saying federal law clearly states that migrants can seek asylum anywhere on U.S. soil. Tigar said the president’s new rules exposed adults and children to “increased risk of violence and other harms.”

“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” the 37-page ruling said.

The Trump administration signaled Tuesday that it would continue to fight in court to implement the asylum policy, which a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department compared to the version of the travel ban that was narrowly upheld by the Supreme Court in June.

“As the Supreme Court affirmed this summer, Congress has given the President broad authority to limit or even stop the entry of aliens into this country,” DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman and Justice spokesman Steven Stafford said in the statement. “We look forward to continuing to defend the Executive Branch’s legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border.”

Tigar’s decision is the latest in a string of defeats for a president who had pledged to crack down on illegal immigration, and has threatened to oust Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as the number of families caught crossing the border each month continues to spiral.

Federal judges have frustrated Trump’s efforts to strip funding from sanctuary cities and rescind temporary work permits and deportation protections from roughly 1 million immigrants who were protected under past administrations. His “zero tolerance” policy, which forcibly separated parents and children at the border this spring, exploded into a public crisis. The Republican-led Congress so far has declined to fund his promised border wall.

Four immigrant advocacy groups — the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles — filed suit over the asylum policy hours after the administration issued the new rule in early November.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the groups’ case before Tigar at a court hearing Monday, said the judge’s ruling means that migrants can apply for asylum anywhere along the nearly 2,000 mile Mexican border, as they have done for decades.

But he said the decision to cross illegally is theirs alone.

“We don’t, and would not advise anybody to break the law,” he said. At the same time, he said, advocates believe many will attempt to sneak across the border because the U.S. government is limiting the number of asylum seekers who can cross legally.

Advocates say asylumseeking migrants are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, but the Trump administration claims they are filing false asylum claims to gain entry into the United States.