https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/30/politics/asylum-injunction-ruling-immigration/index.html
Ariane de Vogue and Geneva Sands, report for CNN:
Washington (CNN)A federal judge in California on Friday left in place a nationwide injunction that blocks the President’s asylum restrictions from going into effect.
Judge Jon S. Tigar of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said the government had not shown that the President’s policy “is a lawful exercise of Executive Branch authority.”Lawyers for the Department of Justice had asked Tigar to lift his temporary restraining order — issued November 19 — while the appeals process plays out.But Tigar refused to do so, holding that the government had failed to convince him that asylum seekers with legitimate claims would not suffer “significant harms” due to the new policy.The move comes after President Donald Trump lashed out last week at Tigar, and said he would ultimately prevail in the case before the Supreme Court.Earlier this month, Trump signed a proclamation that would have prevented most migrants who crossed the southern border illegally from seeking asylum.The American Civil Liberties Union immediately sued the administration on behalf of asylum assistance groups in California. Within 10 days of the President’s proclamation, Tigar granted the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order. The policy has since been in legal limbo.“We are pleased the district court continues to recognize the harm that will occur if this illegal policy goes into effect,” ACLU lead attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement Friday.Asked for comment, the Justice Department referred CNN to a statement issued by Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Katie Waldman and Justice Department spokesman Steven Stafford after the temporary restraining order was issued, which says in part: “Our asylum system is broken, and it is being abused by tens of thousands of meritless claims every year. As the Supreme Court affirmed this summer, Congress has given the President broad authority to limit or even stop the entry of aliens into this country.”When he issued his order on November 19, Tigar said the Trump administration policy barring asylum for immigrants who enter outside legal checkpoints “irreconcilably conflicts” with immigration law and the “expressed intent of Congress.”“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Tigar wrote, adding that asylum seekers would be put at “increased risk of violence and other harms at the border” if the administration’s rule is allowed to go into effect.On behalf of the administration, Department of Justice attorneys had argued that the court’s injunction “directly undermines the President’s determination that an immediate temporary suspension of entry between ports of entry is necessary to address the ongoing and increasing crisis facing our immigration system.”
****************************************************
The statements issued by the DOJ and DHS claiming that there are “tens of thousands of meritless asylum applications” are misleading, at best. While it is true that more asylum applications are denied than are granted, (a stark reversal of the situation only a few years ago), that by no means makes them “meritless” or means that the individuals didn’t have a right to have their cases fairly adjudicated under our laws.
Indeed, the latest TRAC statistics showing a continuously declining asylum grant rate under Trump, notwithstanding worsening conditions in the Northern Triangle and in most other asylum sending countries, strongly suggests that it is the Government’s bias and blatant politicization of the Immigration Court system that is the real abuse here.
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/539/
Clearly, Session’s perversion of the law and facts in Matter of A-B- in an effort to deny protection to one of the most clearly persecuted groups in the world — women who are victims of gender based persecution in the forms of domestic violence — is a prime example of the type of improper racist-inspired political meddling that has been allowed to take place. It has destroyed the remaining integrity of the Immigration Court system, as well as endangered the lives of many deserving refugees in need of protection to which they are legally entitled but are being denied for improper reasons. When history eventually sorts out this sordid episode, the racist officials and the “go along to get along” judges and other government officials will be clearly identified for what they are.
The idea that the U.S. Government, which has purposely created a bogus “emergency” at the Southern Border with the political stunt of sending troops rather than Asylum Officers and Judges, is preposterous! While the poor asylum seekers face a genuine danger intentionally and cynically created by Trump and his White Nationalists, they pose no real threat to the U.S. Fortunately, Judge Tigar saw through the Administration’s contemptuous threats and disingenuous arguments to the contrary.
PWS
111-30-18