A federal judge in the District of Columbia struck down most of the Justice Department’s policy that made it more difficult for immigrants fleeing domestic violence or gang violence to qualify for asylum.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the policies, implemented by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, violated federal immigration law.
Sullivan, appointed to his current position by former President Bill Clinton but also previously appointed to other posts by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, blocked the Trump administration from continuing to enforce the measures and deporting immigrants who are currently in the U.S. “without first providing credible fear determinations consistent” with federal immigration laws. He also ordered the federal government to return immigrants who have been deported under the Justice Department’s policies back to the U.S.
Sessions, who was forced out as attorney general last month, released guidance in June barring immigrants who seek refuge in the U.S. from domestic violence or gang violence from qualifying for asylum.
Sessions said at the time that the “mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.”
The order from the attorney general overturned a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which granted asylum to a Salvadoran woman who said she suffered more than a decade of domestic abuse by her husband.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a subsequent memo stating that immigrants claiming asylum because of domestic or gang-related violence have to demonstrate the “government is unwilling or unable to control” the harm “such that the government either ‘condoned the behavior or demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victim.’”
But in his ruling invalidating most of the policies, Sullivan wrote “there is no legal basis for an effective categorical ban on domestic violence and gang-related claims.”
He also wrote that the measures were “inconsistent with the intent of Congress” as laid out in federal immigration law. “And because it is the will of Congress — not the whims of the Executive — that determines the standard for expedited removal, the court finds that those policies are unlawful,” Sullivan wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier this year challenging the policies, lauded the order.
“This ruling is a defeat for the Trump administration’s all-out assault on the rights of asylum seekers,” Jennifer Chang Newell, managing attorney of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “The government’s attempts to obliterate asylum protections is unlawful and inconsistent with our country’s longstanding commitment to provide protection to immigrants fleeing for their lives.”
Sullivan is the same judge who rebuked former national security adviser Michael Flynn during a sentencing hearing Tuesday. Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI in January 2017 about his contacts with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn’s sentencing, however, was delayed until his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller is completed.
