A federal appeals court on Friday denied the Trump administration’s request to reinstate a ban on migrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border from seeking asylum outside of official ports of entry.
In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said it would not lift a lower court’s temporary injunction on the ban.
The judges said the presidential proclamation signed by Trump last month “is likely inconsistent with existing United States law.”
“Just as we may not, as we are often reminded, ‘legislate from the bench,’ neither may the Executive legislate from the Oval Office,” Judge Jay Bybee, a nominee of President George W. Bush, wrote for the majority.
Trump issued the proclamation in response to migrant caravans approaching the southern border.
On Nov. 19, U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar, who is based in San Francisco, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from refusing asylum to migrants who cross the border illegally.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” wrote Tigar, who was nominated by President Barack Obama.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders blasted the ruling as “yet another example of activist judges imposing their open borders policy preferences.”
The administration then appealed to the 9th Circuit for an immediate stay on Tigar’s ruling.
In a dissenting opinion Friday, Judge Edward Leavy, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said the president, attorney general, and secretary of Homeland Security had “adopted legal methods to cope with the current problems rampant at the southern border.”
