Trump Barred From Forcing Asylum Seekers to Wait in Mexico
Trump’s policies to curb immigration have been repeatedly stymied by judges since he took office in January 2017.
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration was barred by a U.S. judge from forcing Central Americans seeking asylum from persecution to wait in Mexico for months or even years while their applications are being processed.
The ruling Monday by a federal judge in San Francisco is the latest setback for President Donald Trump in his crusade to curb immigration. His policies have been repeatedly stymied by judges since he took office in January 2017.
The Department of Homeland Security announced April 1 -- while the president was threatening to shut the southern border -- that it was broadening its push to send migrants back to Mexico as border patrol agents faced a surge in illegal crossings. Trump said days later while visiting the border that the U.S. is “full” of people and can’t accommodate any more migrants from Latin America.
The legal challenge was led by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that subjecting immigrants to long layovers in Mexico would put them at risk of being kidnapped, sexually assaulted or murdered.
The government argued that its policy was permitted under federal immigration law and courts can’t second-guess it. The Justice Department maintains that Congress has given the president broad authority to limit immigration, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court when it upheld Trump’s scaled-back travel ban on people from several, mostly Muslim countries.
The Department of Homeland Security’s policy “lacks sufficient protections against aliens being returned to places where they face undue risk to their lives or freedom,” U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said Monday in his decision.
The individuals represented by the ACLU showed “uncontested evidence that they fled their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to escape extreme violence, including rape and death threats,” and have continued to “experience physical and verbal assaults, and live in fear of future violence, in Mexico,” Seeborg wrote.
The Justice Department declined to comment. The government will probably appeal the decision, as it has done following a series of rulings blocking other initiatives to restrict migration.
Trump, in a Twitter post late Monday night, wrote: “A 9th Circuit Judge just ruled that Mexico is too dangerous for migrants. So unfair to the U.S. OUT OF CONTROL!”
Seeborg is a federal judge in the Northern District of California, not the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In December, two federal judges blocked separate rules that made it harder for immigrants to seek asylum protection in the U.S. from domestic and gang violence and other dangerous situations in their native countries.
Trump’s frustration over his inability to fulfill his signature 2016 campaign promise to curb illegal immigration led him to oust his second homeland security chief, as the president eyes his re-election prospects next year.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned at Trump’s request after a meeting with him on Sunday at the White House residence.
Nielsen announced the new policy Dec. 20, saying Central American immigrants too frequently get a "free pass" into the U.S. if they "say the magic words." Administration officials have voiced concern that many asylum claims are fraudulent.
Trump called the standard practice “catch and release” because it allows asylum seekers to live in the U.S. sometimes for years before judges consider their cases -- and by the time a hearing is set, many migrants have disappeared. A Homeland Security official dubbed the new policy “catch and return.”
In late March, the president started making threats to close the border amid a spike in crossings by undocumented immigrants in the preceding weeks. Trump has alternately blamed Democrats and Central American countries for illegal crossings.
Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants this year reached a five-year high, spiking to 66,450 in February, an increase of more than 18,000 from the previous month, and approaching 100,000 in March, according to Nielsen. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said in late March that the border was “at its breaking point.”
Nielsen announced April 1 that the government would expand its Migrant Protection Protocols -- the official name for the “catch and return” program. The aim is to deny entry to the U.S. for hundreds of additional migrants per day, she said. She also ordered Customs and Border Patrol to accelerate plans to deploy up to 750 officers to the border.
Trump’s policies have drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats.
Lawmakers have expressed dismay that undocumented children were separated from their parents -- part of a “zero tolerance” initiative that was blocked last year by a federal judge. They also refused to give the president all the money he was seeking for a border wall, prompting Trump to declare a national emergency to obtain funds from elsewhere in the budget. That, too, is being challenged in court.
Trump backed off his threat to close the border on April 4, after businesses and Republican lawmakers raised concerns about economic damage from closing the border. Instead, he said he’d impose tariffs on Mexican-built cars if the country doesn’t stem the flow of migrants and illegal drugs over the border in a year.
Still, he said Mexico was doing a “‘great job” on controlling Central American migration in the first few days of April by sending back 1,000 people a day. Mexican officials said their immigration policies and enforcement practices didn’t change in the first week of April.
The case is Innovation Law Lab v. Nielsen, 19-cv-00807, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
To contact the reporter on this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in San Francisco at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth
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