The Trump administration vowed Tuesday morning to continue its efforts to reform asylum policies in a way that makes illegal entrants ineligible to apply, but it is running out of time to do so before as many as 10,000 Central American migrants traveling as part of a caravan to the U.S. have begun arriving in Mexican towns just south of the border.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security issued a joint statement Tuesday rebuking Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for his late Monday temporary restraining order that forces the government to continue considering requests for asylum from people who have been apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol for unlawfully entering the country.
“It is lawful and appropriate that this discretionary benefit not be given to those who violate a lawful and tailored presidential proclamation aimed at controlling immigration in the national interest,” DOJ spokesman Steven Stafford and DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a statement.
“And it is absurd that a set of advocacy groups can be found to have standing to sue to stop the entire federal government from acting so that illegal aliens can receive a government benefit to which they are not entitled,” they added, referring to the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center. “We look forward to continuing to defend the executive branch’s legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border.”
Both department officials said a president has the legal right to amend immigration levels under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
On Nov. 9, the White House announced a proposal to bar asylum for any person who does not apply at a port of entry, of which there are 200 on the northern and southern borders.
“But aliens who enter the United States unlawfully through the southern border in contravention of this proclamation will be ineligible to be granted asylum,” Trump wrote in the proclamation. “The arrival of large numbers of aliens will contribute to the overloading of our immigration and asylum system and to the release of thousands of aliens into the interior of the United States.”
The move was intended to prevent people in caravans headed to the U.S. from Central America from illegally entering the country and then being permitted to apply for asylum.
Tigar’s temporary ban will prevent the White House policy from taking effect through Dec. 19, when he scheduled a second hearing.
