A federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot categorically deny asylum claims from people crossing the southern border, striking down a change made on President Trump’s first day in office.
The ruling rejected the idea, repeatedly put forth by the president, that such extraordinary powers were justified to curtail what Mr. Trump has called an invasion of the United States by immigrants crossing the southern border.
In a hefty 128-page opinion, Judge Randolph D. Moss of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Constitution and federal immigration law did not afford Mr. Trump the expansive authorities he claimed.
“The court recognizes that the executive branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” he wrote.
But neither the Constitution nor the current law governing asylum seekers, Judge Moss wrote, could “be read to grant the president or his delegees authority to adopt an alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.”
Despite the sweeping terms of the order, Judge Moss postponed them from taking effect for two weeks to allow for an appeal. As the administration has sought maximum authority to curb immigration, the matter appeared likely to eventually reach the Supreme Court.
The case focused on a Trump proclamation — titled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” — seeking to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions program and override procedures that Congress set in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Under the president’s proclamation, the government has effectively shut down avenues at the southern border for people fleeing persecution or torture to apply for asylum and remain in the United States. At the same time, Mr. Trump has moved to suspend other programs granting certain groups temporary protected status.
The immigrant rights groups behind the lawsuit argued that the Trump administration had usurped Congress’s power to make laws governing the system for asylum. They brought a legal challenge on behalf of more than a dozen people who had been detained or removed from the United States without their asylum claims being addressed.
“Under the proclamation, the government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do,” the immigrant rights groups wrote in their complaint. “It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided.”
Many of those people had experienced political persecution in their home countries of Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Peru and Turkey, according to court filings. Their lawyers said some were subjected to “traditional torture” at the hands of those governments.
“This ruling means that asylum will once again be available for those fleeing horrific danger and in doing so, reaffirms that the president must respect the laws Congress enacts,” Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case, said. “The decision will literally mean the difference between life and death for many families escaping religious and other forms of persecution.”
As part of the ruling on Wednesday, Judge Moss agreed to certify asylum seekers in the case as a class, making the ruling applicable to those “currently present in the United States.” That marked an critical win for most individuals facing the Trump administration’s policy after the Supreme Court last week limited the power of individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions. Class actions, involving many people in a similar situation, were not affected by the court’s ruling on birthright citizenship.
Although the lawsuit had been designed as a class action since it was filed in February, the Trump administration immediately moved to cast the ruling as a workaround of the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and an architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, said on social media that the judge’s order was an attempt to “circumvent” the Supreme Court’s will and carve out “a protected global ‘class’ entitled to admission into the United States.”
But the central question at issue in the case — whether the president can override immigration law set by Congress — was one Judge Moss had shown skepticism about for some time.
During a hearing in April, Judge Moss clashed with a Justice Department lawyer, Drew Ensign, over what he said were the apparently unlimited powers the executive branch believed it could take through Mr. Trump’s order.
Judge Moss, an Obama appointee, rattled off a list of hypotheticals, including whether Mr. Trump could authorize officials to shoot at anyone trying to cross into the United States. He homed in on the notion, repeated throughout the executive order, that the president could consolidate power in cases in which the United States was facing a so-called invasion.
“Your view is the president can do anything in the world to implement an entry bar, even if it’s unlawful, and there’s just nothing you can do about it?” he asked.
Mr. Ensign rejected the situations the judge posed as unrealistic, but appeared to maintain that if the president did take any of those actions that they would not be subject to judicial review.
Ultimately, Judge Moss concluded on Wednesday that the president had effectively tried to make an end run around the law under the pretense of a hostile invasion.
“The president may not act in derogation of the laws that Congress has enacted,” he wrote.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
The post Judge Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Stop Asylum Claims at Border appeared first on New York Times.
