President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on asylum claims by immigrants crossing the southern border vastly exceeded his legal authority and must be halted, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said Trump’s Jan. 20 proclamation declaring an “invasion” of southern border-crossers cannot be used to justify the “sweeping” unilateral restrictions he sought to impose, including severe limits to asylum applications and the ability to seek protection from torture.
Under Trump’s proclamation, people who crossed the southern border between “ports of entry” are barred from seeking asylum or invoking other legal protections that would allow them to temporarily remain in the U.S. while their claims are processed.
And the proclamation further says that immigrants who do arrive at ports of entry — designated locations where people can enter the country legally — are severely restricted from invoking those protections. To do so, they must provide far more detailed personal information than is required under federal immigration law, such as extensive medical and criminal histories.
By imposing the severe restrictions, the proclamation allows immigration authorities to quickly deport people who say they are fleeing violence, persecution or humanitarian strife, rather than processing their claims. Trump and his allies say this was a necessary step to regain control of an overrun border.
But Moss said those limitations go far beyond what the law allows. Existing procedures in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the judge said, provide the “sole and exclusive” means for the federal government to deport people who cross the border illegally — no matter how cumbersome or inadequate the administration views the process. Trump’s proclamation established “an alternative immigration system” that has no basis in law, the judge ruled.
“Nothing in the INA or the Constitution grants the President … the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation and implementing guidance,” Moss wrote in the 128-page ruling. “An appeal to necessity cannot fill that void.”
Moss, an Obama appointee in Washington, D.C., said his ruling will apply to all people “who are currently present or who will be present in the United States” and might face the restrictions being challenged in the case. He said a separate ruling would address similar claims by those already deported under the procedures he has found to be illegal.
“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,” Moss wrote. “But the INA, by its terms, provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country.”
Moss agreed to pause his ruling for two weeks to give Trump a chance to appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump’s mass deportation agenda, a particularly significant repudiation coming just days after the Supreme Court sharply limited the ability of district court judges to issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal government policies. That decision came in cases challenging his effort to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants and foreigners on short-term visas, although the justices did not directly address that issue.
Moss acknowledged the Supreme Court’s ruling on nationwide injunctions, but noted that the decision left room for judges to act under a federal law that allows them to “set aside” efforts by government agencies to implement new policies the courts deem unlawful. Moss’ ruling effectively blocks federal agencies from implementing Trump’s proclamation and requires that immigrants covered by the decision continue to have the ability to seek asylum or relief under the international Convention Against Torture.