A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a Trump administration ban on immigrants from seeking asylum at the southern border, saying that President Donald Trump’s order declaring an “invasion” violated the law.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia paves the way for asylum applications to continue at the border, though the Justice Department could appeal to the Supreme Court.
The appellate court said the Trump administration overstepped its authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Two judges sided with immigrant advocates challenging the Trump administration action and another judge both concurred and dissented in the decision.
“Congress enacted the asylum, with narrow exceptions specified by statute, to grant all foreign individuals ‘physically present’ in the United States a right to apply for asylum and have their individual applications adjudicated,” Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote in the majority opinion. “If the Government wishes to modify this carefully structured and intricate system, it must present those arguments to the only branch of government able to amend the INA: Congress.”
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Trump, on the first day of his second term, signed an executive order saying that “the current situation at the southern border qualifies as an invasion” because it was “overwhelming” the system and preventing “operational control of the border.” The president’s order effectively closed the door for immigrants to apply for asylum at the southern border. Individuals must be physically present in the country in order to apply for asylum.
The three-judge court said only Congress has the power to bar asylum applications, not the Justice Department or Department of Homeland Security.
“History illustrates this point,” Childs wrote. “No previous Attorney General or DHS Secretary has asserted that the INA authorizes it to preemptively deny asylum to an entire class of individuals by Proclamation.”
The decision by the appellate court upholds a ruling from last July, in which US District Judge Randolph Moss similarly concluded that the policy was unlawful.
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