PHOENIX – A U.S. judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s most comprehensive set of asylum restrictions less than two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden took office.
The rules were set to take effect on Monday. The court order limited the immediate impact because the government largely suspended asylum on the US-Mexico border during the coronavirus pandemic, citing public health concerns.
Still, letting the rules go into effect would have been felt by some who can still apply for asylum and would make things significantly more difficult for all asylum seekers once pandemic-related measures were lifted.
President Donald Trump’s administration argued that the measures were an appropriate response to a system fraught with abuse and oppressed by unworthy claims.
They sought to redefine how people qualify for asylum and similar forms of humanitarian protection if they face persecution at home. The restrictions would have broadened the grounds for a judge to consider asylum applications “frivolous” and ban applicants from obtaining protections in the United States.
U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco joined forces with defense groups that sued him, saying that acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf had no authority to enforce general rules.
Donato, who was appointed to the bench in 2013 by President Barack Obama, wrote that Wolf’s appointment violated an established succession order. He said it was the fifth time that a court has ruled against Homeland Security on the same grounds.
“The government has recycled exactly the same legal and factual claims made in previous cases, as if they had not been rejected in reasoned opinions by several courts,” wrote Donato. “This is a worrying litigation strategy. In fact, the government continues to crash the same car at a gate, in the hope that one day it might break down. “
Donato said his decision applies to the entire country because limiting its scope “would result in a fragmented and disconnected patchwork of immigration policy.”
It was not immediately clear whether the Trump administration would make an emergency call. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Aaron Frankel, a plaintiffs’ lawyer, called the rules “nothing less than an attempt to end the asylum system”.
Asylum is legal protection for people who flee persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group. Any foreigner who steps on United States soil has the legal right to apply for asylum, in accordance with United States asylum law and international treaty obligations.
The rules would restrict the types of persecution and the seriousness of the threats for which asylum is granted. Candidates seeking gender-based protection or those who claim to have been targeted by gangs, “rogue” government officials or “non-state organizations” are unlikely to be eligible for asylum.
Immigration judges would be instructed to be more selective in granting asylum applications and to allow them to deny most applications without a court hearing.
They would also have weighed several new factors against the applicant’s ability to obtain protections, including non-payment of taxes. Criminal records still count against an asylum seeker, even if their convictions are eliminated.
According to the pandemic-related measures in place since March, about nine out of ten people stopped at the border are immediately expelled for public health reasons. The rest are processed under immigration laws, which include the right to seek asylum.
Donato questioned how people came to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Wolf became interim secretary in November 2019, replacing Kevin McAleenan, who also served as an actor. The courts ruled that Wolf improperly leapt from his position as undersecretary of strategy, policy and plans for the main job.
Donato, like other judges, said that McAleenan, who had been the commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, was also promoted to the post of out of order Homeland Security, making his transfer to Wolf “have no legal effect”.
Homeland Security has been without a Senate-confirmed secretary since Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019.
Although the Trump administration has faced a legal setback, it has already instituted a number of asylum-restricting policies, including making asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their claims are heard in the U.S. court.
Biden is expected to reverse some of Trump’s restrictive asylum measures, including the “Stay in Mexico” policy, but recently said that his government would “probably need the next six months” to recreate a system that can prosecute asylum seekers for prevent a flood of migrants arriving at the southern border.
Also on Friday, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled against government policy that gave state and local governments the right to refuse the resettlement of refugees.
The three-judge panel said that Trump’s executive order, which required state and local authorities to give their consent before allowing refugees to be placed in their areas, would undermine the 1980 Refugee Law. This law established by Congress was designed to allow resettlement agencies to find the best place for a person to thrive while working with local and state officials.