A federal judge blocked a Trump administration policy that would only allow migrants who entered the U.S. at a port of entry to claim asylum. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C. found the policy “inconsistent with” the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that “any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival…), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum.” District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco had already temporarily blocked the policy last year. The ruling last Friday went further by finding that the policy violated statutory immigration law.  It found that “aliens have a statutory right to seek asylum regardless of whether they enter the United States at a designated port of entry, and defendants may not extinguish that statutory right by regulation or proclamation.”

-Weekly Immigration Briefing by Olivia Hester, Immigration Law Analyst at Docketwise

 

Posted in: Immigration