Trump asks SC to restore asylum order
‘End immigration arrests at courthouses’
WASHINGTON, Dec 12, (RTRS): President Donald Trump’s administration asked the US Supreme Court on Tuesday to let his order barring asylum for immigrants who enter the United States illegally take effect even as litigation over the matter proceeds.
The US Justice Department asked the court to lift a temporary restraining order against the asylum rules issued by San Francisco-based US District Judge Jon Tigar. Trump has taken a hard line toward legal and illegal immigration since taking office last year.
Citing what he called an overwhelmed immigration system, Trump issued a proclamation on Nov 9 that authorities process asylum claims only for migrants crossing the southern US border at an official port of entry. Tigar blocked the rules on Nov 19, drawing Trump’s ire.
The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals refused on Friday to lift Tigar’s injunction pending an appeal by the administration, saying the government “has not established that it is likely to prevail.”
The Justice Department said in its request to the Supreme Court that the injunction frustrated the government’s effort to re-establish control over the southern border and reduce illegal crossings. Trump issued his proclamation alongside a new administration rule that effectively prohibited asylum for migrants crossing from Mexico outside a port of entry. The policy came as the government sought ways to block thousands of Central Americans traveling in caravans to escape violence and poverty at home from entering the United States.
Dozens of retired state and federal judges called Wednesday on US immigration officials to stop making arrests at courthouses of people suspected of being in the country illegally, saying immigrants should be free to visit halls of justice without fearing they will be detained.
Nearly 70 former judges from 23 states - including federal judges and state supreme court justices - said in a letter sent to Acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Ronald Vitiello that courthouse arrests are disrupting the criminal justice system.
“I just can’t imagine that we are closing our courtrooms to people who have a right to be there. And you really are closing them if you instill fear in people so they cannot come near a courtroom,” said Fernande R.V. Duffly, who was born in Indonesia to Dutch and Chinese parents and served as an associate justice on Massachusetts’ highest court until 2016.
The judges are urging Vitiello to add courthouses to the list of socalled “sensitive locations” that are generally free from immigration enforcement, like schools and places of worship. They say that only “unequivocal guarantees and protections will restore the public’s confidence that it can safely pursue justice in our nation’s courts.”
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School helped organize the letter, whose signers include judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors.